


Richer Fruits

by tempus_teapot (dreadnot)



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: M/M, UST, kmeme
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-08-24
Updated: 2011-10-16
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:37:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadnot/pseuds/tempus_teapot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU in which Ser Alrik's Tranquil Solution takes a different direction, changing Anders' life and Justice's as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> tl;dr note about time  
> We all know that DA2’s timeline is screwed up. I’m just saying that straight up front. Not all of it jives, so I’m taking authorial license to jive it my own damn self. This story starts ten months after the ending of the Blight. Assume six to eight months for the events of DAA, its aftermath, and then the Warden Commander heads out on his little hunt for Morrigan. While he’s away, Anders gets his own watchdog templar and he and Justice join. You can also mentally paint in Widald Amell from Grotesquerie as the Warden if you want, because he’s my one and only. XD He’s not really relevant anyway.
> 
> Anders is arriving in Kirkwall, with Justice in his head, two months after they joined, two months before he’ll meet up with Hawke. That should straighten out the timeline as regards DAO and DAA. Is it perfect? Probably not. Is it workable? It is to me. This time frame means for me that Justice has not fully settled in yet, either, and I’ve come up with a couple of quirks to go with that.

_My dearest friend,_

 _My heart breaks for you. Your message reached me as a storm gathers over Kirkwall. I beg you, do not come. This city breeds mysteries like a dark womb and I do not know what effect it would have on you as you are._

 _I remain at the Circle for now. There are people here who need me, and the gathering storm will break over the Gallows, I feel it in my bones._

 _Yes, I know what you would say about my bones, scamp._

 _Go somewhere safer. Go far, be well._

 _Be free,  
Karl_

The _Silverite Maiden_ sailing from Jader carried mixed cargo on its first voyage to Kirkwall since the Blight had ended in Ferelden. Ten months had passed since the Hero of Ferelden had slain the archdemon, and Kirkwall had finally reopened its gates to those seeking to travel to the city. The _Silverite Maiden_ carried both passengers and goods. The passengers were mostly Fereldans seeking to reunite with family or friends, but there were a few Kirkwallers who had been stranded when the city closed its gates.

Among them one scraggly man went mostly unremarked, although most of the passengers also gave him a wide berth because of the robes he wore and the staff he carried. Some uncharitable passengers claimed he was a mage, and that traveling by sea with a mage was bad luck.

If Anders had heard them, he might have laughed. After all, if traveling with a mage was bad luck, shouldn’t that be canceled out by the good luck of traveling with a legendary Grey Warden?

Anders stood on the deck and re-read Karl’s letter as his ship approached the narrow passage into Kirkwall’s harbor. If Karl’s words had not been enough to fill him with a sense of foreboding, the towering, chained, _weeping_ statues that stood at the opening resolutely refusing to look at those foolish enough to enter the City of Chains would have more than adequately done the job.

 _Slavery._

He startled at the dirty grey word, catching himself before he looked around for the source. He would need a mirror, a knife, and a miracle to see the source of that voice that originated from within himself.

 _Slavery is a grave injustice, yet this city raises it high from the moment you sail into its waters._

Anders rubbed his forehead where he imagined Justice looked out on the world through his third eye. Looking up at the sheer cliff walls and the two immense statues cast in eternal bronze sorrow, what he felt first and foremost was not anger at the injustice of slavery, but fear. He feared for himself, for Justice, for Karl, even vaguely for the people who had been forced by desperation or circumstance or even accidents of birth to live in this city.

 _That was in the past, when Kirkwall was part of the Imperium,_ Anders reminded Justice. Sometimes his lips still moved a little when he spoke to the spirit that he had invited to take up housekeeping with him. It had only been a few months and they were both still adjusting.

He made sure his lips did not move when he went on. _Kirkwall is a free state now, part of the Free Marches, and slavery is outlawed._

 _Then why do they keep these reminders?_ Justice asked, the silent words tasting teal on Anders’ tongue.

Anders shook his head. _I don’t know. Maybe they have better things to do than risk people’s lives. Or maybe those statues lean down and smite invading ships._

Considering the pall he felt deep in his soul as Kirkwall hove into view, Anders honestly would not put that out of the realm of possibility. After all, those statues were erected during the rule of the greatest magocracy in Thedas.

 _It’s in the past. We’re here for Karl,_ he reminded Justice.

 _We are here for the sake of all mages,_ Justice said implacably, steel grey leaving Anders’ tongue metallic and tingling. _Karl is but one of many._

 _He might be one of many, but he’s the one who’s stuck here because he followed my lead and escaped Kinloch Hold,_ Anders reminded him. _I owe him. Kinloch Hold was no festival of lights, but the stories coming out of Kirkwall are worse. I’m not leaving him here._

 _We are not leaving him here,_ Justice replied. _But you must not allow yourself to be distracted by a single man. Our goals are greater than that._

Anders rubbed his forehead again. Grand, he was arguing with the voice in his head.

 _We are not arguing._ Dark garnet red tasted of Justice’s vexation.

And he could not get a moment’s privacy even to be annoyed about arguing with the voice in his head. He hoped that with time that he would stop tasting the color of Justice’s reactions. Sometimes it put him right off his food and he was still a growing mage no matter how old he was. He had few enough other pleasures now that he had an eternal voyeur cohabiting with him.

 _You have privacy from the rest of the world,_ Justice reminded him. _I thought you wanted to never be alone. We spoke of your fear. I have seen it in your memories. Why do I not understand you even now?_

 _Because I’m that wonderful mad thing called a human,_ Anders replied with a sigh. He took out a well-worn scrap of paper, reading the single name – Lirene – on it before he tucked it away in his belt pouch again. _Can we leave this for later? We need to get my things, and find Lirene, and I want to focus. You know I get distracted by all the flavors when you talk to me._

The russet tang of Justice’s dissatisfaction was the only answer the spirit gave him, which he supposed meant that he would do as Anders asked.

• • •

Lirene, it turned out after a great deal of asking, could be found at the aptly named Lirene’s Fereldan Imports in Lowtown. In the course of obtaining that information his robe and staff earned rather more hostile stares than he was accustomed to. Maybe it was finally time to reconsider his brilliant tactic of hiding in plain sight when it came to his sartorial choices.

Lowtown must have something to recommend it, he thought to himself as he navigated the reeking streets, once swatting a child’s hand off of his belt pouch, but whatever it was, he was not seeing it. He had heard that Fereldans were not popular in Kirkwall, but he had not expected to find Lirene in the worst part of the city.

Lirene was a stern-faced Fereldan woman who ruled the barely contained chaos of her store with a firm grasp. Her arms folded stance and suspicious stare did nothing to set Anders at ease when he made his way to the counter. He could feel her examine him from head to toes and her head shake was hardly encouraging.

“If you’re seeking aid, leave your name with my girl,” she told him, already looking past him to a woman who unfolded a story of her mother’s wracking cough.

“Ridley told me to see you when I came to Kirkwall,” Anders said and was gratified by Lirene’s flash of recognition and surprise, although not so much by the glint of anger in her eyes.

She turned to the blond woman manning a poorly-stocked counter. “Watch the shop for me.”

“Come with me.” She took Anders by the elbow and guided him through a metal gate at the back of the store into a stockroom. Locking the gate behind her she pushed past him to unlock another door at the back of the stockroom, ushering him into a minimally furnished, but aggressively clean living space.

Once she closed and locked the door she rounded on him. “I told Ridley not to send me any more of his fugitives. I paid my debt to him.”

Anders held up his hands placatingly. “He knows. He said to tell you I’m a healer.”

She looked as though she would spit if it wouldn’t have sullied her floor. “Anyone can grind up a bit of embrium and call it a potion.”

“But can everyone use magic to do it?” he asked, summoning a tiny ball of glowing blue light to the palm of his hand. “I’ll work as a healer if you can find me a space to do it in.”

She kept her eyes on the ball of light and shook her head, though her hostility had faded just a little. “The people who need your help most can’t pay you for magic.”

Anders’ lips twisted with the irony before he quoted the Chant of Light. “Magic exists to serve man…. There’s a woman out there who says her mother has a bad cough. What do you say – I take care of the cough, you get me settled?”

• • •

“Are you barking mad?” he nearly shouted at Lirene as they stood together in the space she was proposing could host his clinic. The only good thing that could be said about it was that suddenly Lowtown did not look like the worst part of town.

“You’re asking me that while you walk around in _Kirkwall_ of all places wearing Tevinter-style mage robes?” she asked him, pointedly flicking a cobweb off of his feathered shoulder. “I’m still amazed a templar didn’t grab you the second you stepped off your ship. It must be what they say about the Maker watching over children and fools.”

Anders grunted. “The Maker has pretty explicitly written my kind off the list of people he watches over.”

“Which leaves women of endless patience such as myself,” Lirene said with a sigh.

Anders theatrically edged away from her, casting a glance up at the ceiling.

Lirene folded her arms. “What are you doing?”

He looked up at the ceiling and moved another step away. “Just waiting for the lightning bolt. You know what they say about the Maker and liars.”

She stared at him for the space of a long breath before her lips quirked up and finally broke into a smile. “Ridley would have to send me a smartass mage. Take the space, Anders. It’s not much, but it’s still better than the Gallows and if you heal a few people down here and don’t take every penny they have, you’ll find Darktown dwellers will watch out for you. There’s few enough who help the poor and the refugees in this city, they’ll even forgive an apostate if he doesn’t take food out of their mouths.”

Anders looked around the space again and sighed. “You’re right. It’s no Pearl, but I’m not that man anymore, am I?”

Lirene rolled her eyes. “If you’re talking about the Pearl I think you’re talking about, no, you’re not that man anymore. You’re in Kirkwall now, but speaking of the Pearl, if you don’t like what I can get you, you could try the Blooming Rose. You might clean up well enough for a job.”

Anders hastily shook his head, already tasting an ugly shade of muddy green from Justice. “No, that’s not me anymore. I’ll just be your neighborhood apostate healer. A little cleaning, a lot of fire, maybe four or five buckets of tears and I might be willing to breathe in here.”

Lirene lightly slapped his cheek. “Stop whinging. There’s plenty as have less and you’re going to meet most of them.”

He didn’t need Justice stirring around in his head to make him recognize the truth of her words. He had walked through Darktown to get to this space. He had seen the gaunt faces and heard the labored breaths of the malnourished and chronically ill.

“You’re right. Fine. I’ll take the space. This is probably life’s way of making me make up for all the fun I’ve had in the past.”

Lirene nodded her approval. “Good boy. Just for that, come with me. I’m taking you to a seamstress I know. She’ll do something with that,” she indicated his robe, “to make you look less like a mage on the run.”

Anders ran a hand over the feathers at his shoulders and sighed. “Fine, but the pauldrons stay. And then I need to ask you a favor.”

Lirene’s expression shuttered with suspicion. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you that you can ask for too many favors in one go?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling grim in the face of her suspicion, “but this one is important to me. I need to get a message into the Gallows.”


	2. Chapter 2

_My dearest friend,_

 _I should have known you would not listen to my advice – when did you ever? But I had hoped that just this once you would. Since you remain as stubborn as always, I shall instead send you the only gift within my power in this place and at this time. What it is, I will not say, consider that my punishment to you for being a stubborn fool._

 _I think of you often and I smile to picture you walking as a free man. I shall feel it vicariously through you and feel the sun on my skin every time you turn your face to the sky._

 _Be free,  
Karl_

Anders sat in his bedroom, reading and re-reading Karl’s letter by the guttering light of a single oil lantern. It was probably best not to dwell on what plant or animal had provided the reeking oil and simply be grateful for the non-magical, non-templar attracting light. To call the clinic’s glorified storage closet a bedroom was a kindness that bordered on absurdity, but it held a cot, a crate that served as a bedside table, and a chest that held his few personal belongings, thus it was his bedroom.

He could hear Karl’s voice in his head when he read the words, bringing to mind some of the few times during his life in Ferelden’s Circle that he could call truly happy. Someone intercepting the letter would not understand the transition between calling Anders a stubborn fool and the warmer thoughts of him as a free man, but that was simply because they could not know the history that he and Karl shared.

After Anders’ third unsuccessful escape attempt, “stubborn fool” had somehow become a form of endearment Karl used, often when they were alone in his room during “the trysting hour” as the Circle mages called the hours late at night when all good little mages were supposed to be in bed alone. Of course, neither he nor Karl were good little mages.

 _“They let you out already? They obviously don’t know you’re a stubborn fool.”_

 _“What did I tell you about stealing some other clothes? You kept your robes? Stubborn fool.”_

 _“Come here and kiss me goodbye, you stubborn fool.”_

Anders put the letter in the chest with Karl’s other letter and left the clinic, navigating Darktown’s twists and turns cautiously before finding the long set of stairs that would take him to the surface.

Once he was outside under the blue sky of a late spring day, he turned his face up to let the sun warm his skin. He tasted muddy green and did not care.

• • •

The funguses you could catch in Darktown were, Anders supposed, intriguing if you were of that bent. He preferred to think he was bent in other, less disgusting manners.

Unfortunately, as far as bent went, he was bent over a man’s feet trying to determine how in the name of Andraste’s favorite sex toy this fellow had managed to get his toenails to glow.

“And you say this started after you were walking through the sewers?” he asked dubiously.

The response left him vaguely nauseated, or maybe it was being so close to his glowing toes. “A man’s gotta eat.”

Justice’s response to that was a blazing yellow outrage so strong Anders had to excuse himself to his bedroom to hunch over his knees, breathing slowly and deeply, trying to quell his nausea.

 _Stop it. It’s awful, it’s unfair, it’s unjust, whatever you want to say, but to fix poverty we’d have to take on the Maker himself. We’ve enough of a mad cause trying to help mages._

Justice roiled inside him, forcing Anders to run for the piss bucket, making it just in time to heave out the pottage that passed for his breakfast and lunch.

 _What have I told you? We can’t afford to turn our nose up at food! Or throw it up afterwards._ He wiped his mouth and snapped a mint leaf off the bunch he kept on his bedside crate like a bouquet of flowers. He brewed it as a tea for patients’ most minor stomach complaints and kept it close by for his own use after moments like this with Justice. He popped it in his mouth and chewed before leaving his room to return to tending to Barnaby’s toes.

After three weeks of this, he was quite ready for a break. Any break. But as Lirene had predicted, cure enough “uncurable” ailments for only what the patient could afford to offer and even an apostate could worm his way into these people’s good graces.

In Barnaby’s case, despite what he had told Justice about not turning his nose up at food, he refused all payment after using a judicious bit of frost and healing magic combined to kill off his fungus. Most people bartered food or services, and no offense meant to a hard-working man, Anders was not yet hungry enough to take food from a man who found it in the sewers.

“Nicely done.”

Anders looked up from scrubbing his hands raw to see the woman addressing him. She was slender with mousy brown hair, somewhere in her middle years. Her face had lines that left her looking severe, but he had noticed that many of the women in Kirkwall seemed that way. The city did not lend itself to frivolity and laughter – at least not the parts of it that he had seen so far. She also did not look as though she belonged in Darktown.

He took up a clean rag to dry his hands and plastered on a smile. One of them had to do it. “If I do nothing else for Kirkwall,” he said, “I will rid it of glowing toe fungus.”

“Mmhm.” She looked him over from head to toe and he had to resist the urge to do a spin for her to show off his newly-retailored robes since she was staring.

It was actually rather strange to wear trousers again, but Lirene’s seamstress had deconstructed his old robes, salvaging the cloth and ornamentation for his new trousers and parts of his coat. The rest of his coat had been assembled from old leather scraps and a few brass rings Lirene had donated, but if he had to say so himself, it still said _“I’m a dashing doable apostate”_ without screaming _“Hello, big old templar man there’s a mage here you should be oppressing!”_

And he still had the feathers, he was unaccountably fond of the feathers.

“I’m not here about toe fungus,” she said, interrupting his thoughts.

“That’s good,” he said, glancing down to see slippers that had clearly never traipsed through the sewers peeking out of the bottom of her gown. “Because Barnaby’s a good chap and all, but I don’t think I could take another case of that today.”

“A friend sent me.”

“That’s how most people find me,” he said, waiting for her to get to the point.

“He said to tell you that you are a stubborn fool.”

Anders’ smile faded.

“Just a tick.” He left her without another word, stepping out onto the landing outside his door to extinguish the lantern that signaled the healer was in before he returned and closed the clinic door.

His anxiety crept up, Justice’s disquiet coating his tongue with citrine. “Tell me.”

The woman waved a hand dismissively. “Two words and suddenly you’re ready for the worst. Karl sent me, if that’s what you’re waiting to hear. You may call me Mistress Selby.”

Despite himself Anders raised an eyebrow; he might have made a comment about situations in which he would call a woman “mistress” but the citrine on his tongue shot through with green from Justice’s disapproval.

“Then you already know I’m Anders,” he said after swallowing to try to clear his mouth of the taste. It never worked, but hope sprang eternal or something to that effect. “The stubborn fool. Did Karl have a message?” He knew he sounded hopeful and didn’t care. “A letter?” He had received Karl’s last letter from a man named Samson, but perhaps Karl had multiple messengers?

Mistress Selby looked around before settling on one of the cots as the cleanest place to sit. “The message is the invitation I’m extending to you, a gift.”

Anders’ eyebrows shot up. “He shouldn’t have.” That dog.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said without rancor. “If you’re here because you care what happens to mages under Chantry oversight, then I’m the woman you want to see.”

She chuckled. “And based on what I have heard about your exploits, I think Karl was right in sending me to you. I need a man experienced in getting out of places.”

“Did he tell you that I’m not as experienced at _staying_ out of them?”

“Seven escape attempts and only the last one successful because of royal intercession?” she asked. “Yes, I’ve heard. Don’t worry about after, my associates and I will handle that. We just need your help with during.”

Justice’s approval was honeyed argent, here was their opportunity to take real action to help the plight of mages in Kirkwall. Anders’ thought was more immediate and more selfish, here was an opportunity to help Karl escape to walk free without Anders as a proxy.

“Too right I’ll help,” he said firmly.

Mistress Selby rose from the cot and smoothed her gown before holding out a hand to Anders. “Welcome to the mage underground.”

• • •

Midnight assignations used to be so much more fun, Anders mused as he picked his way through Lowtown late one night a week after meeting Mistress Selby. For one thing they had not required outwitting street gangs to avoid being murdered for a staff, a too-light purse, and a few feathers.

This meeting promised another letter from Karl, providing Anders all the motivation he needed to brave Kirkwall’s nightlife at the behest of a note carried by a Darktown child. Despite his desire to hear more from Karl, he would not have come out on this fool’s errand if the note had not been signed, “Samson.”

The latest flavor from Justice was once again citrine disapproval, but it was tempered by the knowledge that Karl could offer potentially valuable insight into the workings of the Kirkwall Circle.

Samson waited for him in a little cul-de-sac near the harbor, pacing along the terrace that looked down on the water. He was restless and fidgety, fingers tapping constantly on his thigh when he turned at the sound of Anders’ deliberately heavy footfall. Anders had learned that the man was actually an active templar. As though he had ever doubted that templars could be corrupt.

“You.” Samson pulled a tightly folded piece of parchment from his pocket. “This is the last delivery you get. The Knight-Commander’s twigged that someone’s smuggling messages out and I can’t afford the trouble.”

Anders reached for the letter but Samson pulled his hand back.

“I’m risking everything you know,” he said slyly. “I deserve something extra.”

“Oh?” Anders snatched for the letter, guessing correctly that the man’s reflexes would be less than cat-like. He jerked it out of Samson’s grasp and took a quick step back. “Like Tranquility? I’ll tell you what, when you’re risking that, I’ll pay extra for the deliveries.”

“No more deliveries,” Samson said again, and even past the jitters, Anders saw that he meant it. _Shit._ “That’s it. I’m going straight. It’s not worth always looking over my shoulder.”

Anders found himself utterly unable to sympathize. “Won’t you need the extra coin for the lyrium smugglers?” he asked, hazarding a guess based on Samson’s restiveness and shaking hands. “I always heard the Chantry was tight with the lyrium.”

Samson spat on the ground at Anders’ feet. “Watch your tongue.”

Anders shook his head. “Just remember us when the dust the Chantry gives you isn’t enough.”

He backed away from Samson rather than turn his back on a lyrium-twitched templar. “And thank you.”

When he judged he had backed far enough away, he turned and hurried back to Darktown.

• • •

 _A_

 _Something has changed. There are new arrivals among M’s cadre and they are no regular swords. Since their arrival, mages have gone missing and they do not return as Tranquil as in the past. O says she claims they have been transferred to other circles, but what transfers leave their personal belongings behind for templars to pack away?_

 _Find my gift. Relay this. Trust only Thrask._

 _K_   



	3. Chapter 3

_I must leave here immediately. Tonight. Meet me. You know where._

 _K_

  
Eight-fingered Lucky was just explaining to Anders why it was not his fault that he always ended up playing five-finger fillet and coming out a finger short. Or in this case, a thumb. The only thing that was going to save the offended, _infected_ digit at this point was magic. Thankfully, the fool man was in the right place even if he should have come days ago when it first started swelling.

Anders’ lecture to Lucky about how green things seeping from wounds was _bad_ was interrupted when he glanced up to see Samson leaning against the door frame into the clinic. The left side of the man’s face was livid purple, red lines streaking just under skin drawn taut with swelling. He moved slowly, like a man favoring injuries he could not dare reveal in a district as cutthroat as Darktown.

“You,” Samson rasped. “I’m here for you.”

Anders left Lucky and hurried to help Samson to a cot, looking him over quickly to ascertain that he had no other injuries worse than what appeared to be a bad beating. “Wait. Let me see the others out and I’ll tend to you.”

Samson let Anders help him lie back, groaning with what Anders suspected were cracked ribs. “Make it quick. I’ve got something for you.”

Karl. Anders knew it had to be about Karl, and Samson’s condition filled him with dread. He pushed embrium syrup into a worried mother’s hand with directions for proper dosage before grabbing Lucky’s injured hand. In his urgency, he was not at all gentle, and Lucky yelped at the electric surge of magic that ran all the way up his arm from his injured thumb to the elbow, burning out the creeping infection before it sealed the wound.

“The next time you play that fool game,” Anders said as he tugged Lucky toward the door, “I’m not fixing it. I’ve only been here two months and I’ve healed you three times.”

“But the bet was good!” Lucky protested, stumbling along with Anders’ grip on his wrist. “Next time I’ll split the pot with you.”

Anders rolled his eyes and kept pulling until he had Lucky at the door. “You still owe me for the last two times I healed you. A hot meal would do a treat.”

He pushed Lucky out the door. “Put out the lantern on your way out.”

He closed and barred the door in the face of Lucky’s promises to bring him the best meal in Darktown just as soon as he had a job. They both knew that for an eight-fingered Fereldan refugee, Anders would starve before Lucky could afford even that much. Anders also knew that if Lucky came back with stab wounds in his fingers again, he would still heal the blighted fool.

He turned back to see Samson propped up on his elbow watching Anders closely.

“A healer’s work is never done,” he said, shrugging to cover his fear while he moved to examine Samson. He didn’t ask for permission before he unbuttoned Samson’s shirt to see his torso, asking as casually as he could while he worked, “You said you had something for me?”

“Fix this first,” Samson demanded, lying back on the cot with a groan. “Then we’ll talk.”

Anders quelled the urge to shake the information out of Samson, focusing instead on pulling the man’s shirt open and running his fingers lightly over his ribs, not so much seeing with his eyes or feeling with his fingertips as using his magic to quest under his skin for a full assessment of the injuries.

“Who did this to you?” he asked in a detached, distracted murmur while he categorized the cracked ribs and deep bruises.

Samson grunted. “Meredith did my face.”

Anders looked up sharply, his fingers stilling while his heart started to pound. “Meredith?”

“You’re looking at an ex-templar, now _finish.”_

Anders drew a deep breath and pushed his fears away long enough to finish his examination before he splayed his hands out over Samson’s chest to mend his bones and speed his body’s natural healing. The bruises on his face accelerated through red and purple, fading quickly into green and yellow before sinking away under his skin as though he had never been hurt.

Samson pushed himself up, his lips twisted into a sick parody of a smile. “Got to say that much about you mages, it beats limping around like an old man for weeks.”

“That’s grand, fantastic, _wonderful,”_ Anders said, standing to give Samson room to rise from the cot and stretch. “Now what do you have?”

Samson finished a back-cracking stretch before shoving a hand down the back of his trousers. Anders watched in vaguely fascinated horror as he dug around and finally came out with a crumpled scrap of parchment.

Even knowing where it had just been, he reached for it, but Samson moved his hand away. “Uh uh. I took a beating over this. They kicked me out. I’ve got nothing and you owe me.”

“I just healed you,” Anders snapped, feeling a rising urge to simply paralyze Samson and take the note from his hand. “If you took a beating for that why do you still have it?” Other than the revolting fact that it had apparently been shoved somewhere that probably had never seen the sun.

Samson had the grace to look a bit sheepish. “I carry messages for other mages too, but they don’t know all the details. I handed over the ones that wouldn’t get me killed.” He shrugged. “Love letters, notes to Mummy and Daddy, those kinds of things.”

Anders reached for the note again. “You’re a paragon of selflessness you are.”

Again Samson snatched it back. “And now I’m out on my ear because of your sort.”

 _He is greedy and unworthy. Why must we have an ally like this?_ Justice asked suddenly, making Anders stiffen at the sudden disembodied voice.

 _He isn’t an ally, he’s a tool. And honorable and_ “worthy” _are relative. Thrask’s been helping the mage underground just because he thinks mages aren’t treated the way we deserve. Ask Meredith, and she’ll say he’s a traitor to the Order. Ask me and he’s a bloody hero._

He realized he had taken too long in his silent exchange with Justice. The way Samson was staring, he wondered if his lips had moved.

“What do you want?” he asked, going on the offensive. “Coin? You saw how I get paid.”

Samson thrust out his chest belligerently. “You’ve got to have something. Give me what you’ve got and I’ll give you the note.”

This was _unfair!_ He had another split-second impulse to crush Samson and take the note, but this time Justice’s frustration compounded his own. He felt the first word of the spell on his lips before he caught himself and hissed.

 _We aren’t doing this._ He told himself and Justice at the same time.

His shoulders slumped as he left Samson to fetch his coin purse from the chest in his room, throwing it at Samson without opening it. “That’s all I have. Now hand it over.”

Samson tossed the note to him and tugged open the strings of the coin purse before dumping Anders’ meager stash of coppers and silver out into his palm. “That’s all?”

Anders set aside his distaste for where the note had come from and smoothed it out enough to read the terse message.

“Get out.”

Samson slid the coins back into the purse. “Not even a thank you?”

Anders picked up his staff. “I’ll thank you to get out. Now.”

• • •

Anders had only been into the smugglers tunnel once before. He had expected to help some brave Circle mage or mages escape from the Gallows. What he had not expected that he would help a young woman deliver her baby in those tunnels. She had hidden her pregnancy under loose robes and did her best not to attract any attention, but rather than run with her child, she had chosen to stay.

Nialle had wept bitterly when she kissed her daughter hello and goodbye, but Anders felt a strange pride for her strength. The Chantry had her phylactery, she said, and she would not let her daughter grow up a fugitive.

He would never forget seeing her walk stiffly back up the tunnel toward the Gallows with her escort, her shoulders hunched tight around her pain.

He scanned the floor at his feet for some sign of where that baby girl had been born. There, he thought, where the moss was particularly thick. He remembered its fresh wet odor before the hot, coppery scent of birth had drowned it out.

Selby – he refused to think of her as Mistress Selby – leaned against the stone wall and sighed. “Anders, it’s after sunrise. If he was going to be here, he would have been here by now. We’ve come back three nights in a row and I think it’s time to start accepting—”

“I’m not accepting a thing,” Anders snapped. “Things happen, plans have to be postponed. You said so yourself.”

“I said it last night,” Selby agreed. “But if he has had to change his plans three nights in a row, we’re better off waiting for a new message.”

Anders ran his hands through his hair, jerking hard on the strands in frustration. “From whom? Samson’s out, and the ferry hasn’t run since the day he was drummed out. They’re doing some kind of housecleaning in there and Karl’s in danger!” He realized he had shouted only when the last words echoed back at him.

“Shh,” Selby hissed. “You’ll call the whole Gallows down on us.”

“He is rather loud,” agreed the templar who stepped out of a side tunnel to join them.

Anders’ body flooded with adrenaline at the sight of the sword of mercy on the man’s gleaming plate mail, he had his staff in his hand before he recognized him an instant later. Ser Thrask cut a distinctive figure – a tall human man perhaps Anders age or a bit older with red hair and an equally red goatee. He had been the one to escort the pregnant mage Anders had helped before.

“Fortunately, or unfortunately as it may be, the Gallows is buzzing like a struck beehive and most of the templars are busy searching every mage’s cell,” Thrask told them. “I had hoped I might find you down here, but I hadn’t expected to.”

Selby looked past him out of habit to ensure that he really was alone. “How did you know we would be here?”

“Three days ago Karl told me that he had gotten a note out with Samson. He told me that he had found something in the solitary confinement wing and he had to get out.”

Anders realized that even in the poor lighting of the tunnel, Thrask looked absolutely grey, his matter-of-factness coming at a hard cost.

“Where’s Karl?” he asked, the metallic taste on his tongue having nothing to do with Justice and everything to do with his own cresting anxiety.

Thrask shook his head and cast his eyes at the floor. “For the first day I thought he had escaped, but when no one raised an alarm, I started to worry. One the second day, I heard that his cell was being cleaned out because he had been transferred to Starkhaven. I knew that was a load of bollocks.”

Selby put a hand on his arm. “You know where he is.”

“I snuck into the solitary wing today,” Thrask said, still not looking at either of them. “I don’t know how he got in there the first time. It was a near thing for me and if it weren’t for this,” he thumped his armor, “I wouldn’t have made it out when one of them caught sight of me.”

“Them?” Anders asked. There were too many questions, Thrask was going too slowly. He wanted to… to… to make the world work the way it was supposed to, without all this anxiety and waiting.

“The brothers and sisters from Val Royeaux. The ones sent by the Divine herself.”

“Get on with it,” Anders urged. “There’s bad news here, just say it!”

Thrask finally looked up at him and shook his head. “Ser Alrik is Meredith’s liaison with the Orlesians. He and Karl have had some run-ins. I heard him talking about Karl being another failure when he came out of the wing before I snuck in.”

Anders sucked in a breath, the world going strangely blue around the edges before he got his emotions under control. “Is he—”

“Tranquil?” Thrask supplied. “No. And he’s alive, but… every occupied cell in the isolation wing has one of the mages that was supposedly transferred. I found Karl in one of them.”

Anders’ fingers tightened on his staff until he could almost hear his joints creak. Solitary confinement would forever be one of his lingering horrors.

“Is he okay?”

Thrask shook his head. “I couldn’t wake him. All the others were like him, flat on their backs, asleep or just… gone.”

“I have to get him out,” Anders said immediately. “Get me in there.”

“Are you mad?” Thrask asked, aghast. “You want me to just walk you into the solitary confinement wing of the Gallows and carry a sleeping mage out past all the templars?”

“Yes,” Anders said. “That’s exactly what I want.”

Selby shook her head. “Think this through.” She tried a smile and failed. “I know it’s not your strong suit.”

“No,” Anders said, turning on her with an expression so dark she flinched. “My strong suit is escapes, remember?”

“Then plan,” Selby exhorted him. “Don’t just walk in there to commit suicide. Karl has been there at least three nights.” She turned her attention to Thrask. “What about the others? How long have they been there?”

“Anywhere from days to weeks,” Thrask answered, catching on to her line of thought. “And they’re still alive. I know you want to get him out now, but another night or two won’t hurt, and it might be the difference between success and death.”

Anders did not want to listen. Even Justice did not want to listen. They both pulsed with the need to rectify this immediately, but when he thought past the immediate urge, all he could see was charging into the Gallows with his staff and a half-hearted templar.

He would be dead before he had time to soil himself.

Selby and Thrask both visibly relaxed when he sighed and slumped. “Fine. I’ll be back here tomorrow night. I want a detailed layout of the Gallows from you then, but I _am_ getting Karl out of there.”

• • •

When he dragged himself out of the sewers and back to his clinic, there were already patients waiting outside the clinic. He was too tired to even be annoyed that they had ignored the unlit lantern.

He looked at the man and woman huddled over a boy who was curled around his stomach in an sobbing ball and sighed before lighting the lantern and unlocking the clinic door. His legs felt too heavy to lift, his eyes were burning, but Justice was all too ready to remind him that he had an obligation to use his gifts in a way that supported their belief that mages deserved their freedom.

“Come in,” he told them, leading them to one of the cots before he set his staff against a nearby pillar.

Like most refugee families, they had not sought aid until the need was dire. With his parents’ help, they got the boy laid out on the cot for him to examine.

Even the examination was a drain, taking what reserves he had left just to slide his magic down through the boy’s skin, questing over his organs before finding a growth that would prove fatal before the next sunrise if Anders did not act immediately.

 _I can’t._ He had nothing left to give. _I have to sleep._

 _You must._ He tasted steel-grey determination on his tongue, but this time instead of merely commenting or watching, Justice slid out of wherever it was that most of him resided and into Anders’ limbs, suffusing them with strength, helping him straighten his back and draw a deep breath. _I am here for you. I will help carry your burden._

He almost smiled at the timely reminder that their partnership came with benefits as well as costs. _Thank you._

Together they summoned the delicate energies needed to clear away the growth, carefully balancing another spell to hold the child still while he worked, pulling the magic not just from his connection to the Fade, but cannibalizing his own body to bring life as a balance to all the times he had brought death.

Even when the world swayed after they let the magic go, it was worth it when the boy sat up, his expression lit with wonder at the absence of a pain that had been with him far too long.

He heard the rattle of armor while he leaned against the pillar to let the weakness pass. Maker, but he was too weary to fight, but Justice, still there at the surface, was not. Justice provided the energy to snatch up his staff and turn on the intruders.

He assessed them with a raking glance – a dwarf with an outsized crossbow, a human woman in the armor of the city guard, a tiny elven woman with the facial tattoos of the Dalish, and… a human man in mage’s robes.

And here Lirene had acted as though he was the only apostate wandering Kirkwall.


	4. Chapter 4

“You said a favor for a favor, not starting a war with the entire Chantry.”

Anders bared his teeth in something that might have been a smile if there had been a scrap of humor to it. Not that anyone could see the expression past the mask he was wearing that covered his face from the cheekbones down. “You didn’t ask for a healer’s favor or even a mage’s favor. No, you asked for a Grey Warden’s favor. Haven’t you learned by now that means there _will_ be blood? Don’t you listen to _any_ of the stories?”

Garrett Hawke shifted his staff and adjusted his own mask. “I listen,” he said, “but I’ve always made it a policy to expect that things like that don’t apply to me.”

“Tell me how that’s working for you,” Anders muttered.

“Not so well, actually,” Garrett admitted.

“Can you two banter later?” the dwarf – Varric – asked in a low undertone. “Daring rescue raids should never end with half the rescuers being caught in a storage closet because they couldn’t shut up.”

Anders closed his mouth and fidgeted. At least Justice was there as a reassuring constant. The spirit was on edge – or was he picking up Anders’ emotion and magnifying it? – but he was there, and if his reasons for wanting Karl out of the Gallows were different, at least they were in agreement on the necessity.

He had hardly expected three days ago that the man who walked into his clinic with a motley collection of companions would have been the key to conceiving a rescue attempt that just might end with a low body count and Karl free, but there they were in a closet that smelled of cedar and lavender and wet mops waiting for the signal to act.

Thrask was out there with the guardswoman, Aveline, and a truculent young man who Garrett had introduced as his brother Carver, the two people in Hawke’s entourage best able to wear the armor they had “liberated” from a pair of templars who would never be coming back from investigating strange noises in the lower reaches of the Gallows.

Other than Aveline asking if they could have stopped with just two templars instead of killing a half dozen more on their way out of the smugglers tunnels, Hawke’s people had accepted it all with surprising equanimity.

All three men stiffened when the door opened, relaxing when Thrask slipped inside. “They’re in,” he said in a tense whisper. “I’ve never been so happy for those forsaken full face helmets as now.”

This mad plan was as much Thrask’s doing as Anders’. Thrask had provided the floor plans and the watch schedules, and they were counting on him to be their point man.

Hawke checked his mask again with Anders and Varric following suit. “So we go now?”

“If we hear anything we go now, otherwise we give them enough time to subdue the two guards that are in there now,” Thrask said. “Remember, Karl’s cell is on the left, third from the far end.”

He looked down at Varric. “You’re sure he can get the lock open?”

Varric buffed his fingernails on the front of the nondescript coat that he was wearing instead of the flashier, chest-baring coat Anders had first seen him in. “Just leave that to me. I have a way with all things mechanical.” He reached back to pat his crossbow. “Isn’t that right, Bianca?”

Anders honestly hoped that the dwarf was not quite as crazy as that particular action made him seem.

On the other hand, they were standing in a storage closet in the heart of the bloody Gallows, so throwing stones about crazy seemed in bad taste. The only reason they had any chance of this succeeding was that no one, not even the templars could imagine something as recklessly insane as what they were trying.

“They’ve had enough time,” Hawke said. “Let’s go.”

Thrask opened the door and checked the hallway before signaling the others to follow.

Anders felt Justice riding right behind his eyes. _We’re in the belly of the beast, my friend._

He could feel Justice taking in the windowless corridor, the claustrophobic row of door after door leading to tiny prison cells. _It is wrong to imprison mages like this._

 _Too right,_ Anders agreed. _Kinloch Hold was bad enough, but they don’t even pretend we’re anything but criminals here, even if our only crime was being born._

But he and Justice never disagreed on things like this. Only on the things that Justice considered would be a distraction from the cause he had agreed to take up when they had joined.

Thrask stopped at the door to the solitary confinement wing and held up a hand for the others to wait. At his signal, Anders, Hawke, and Varric moved against the wall to wait out of immediate view while Thrask pulled the door open enough to look inside. He waved them onward immediately and ducked through the door without waiting to see if they followed.

The solitary wing was exactly as bleak as Anders had expected. His stomach clenched looking at the row of cell doors, each with a tiny viewing grate covered by a closed shutter.

Carver and Aveline were busy dragging two armored bodies into an unoccupied cell. Varric did not wait for instruction, moving down toward the cell door Thrask had told them was Karl’s.

“Don’t suppose they’ve got keys, do they?” he asked as he passed Carver and Aveline.

“Look for yourself,” Carver said, grunting with the effort of moving a full grown man in heavy armor. “We were too busy to look for pockets.”

Varric rolled his eyes and leaned over to pull an obvious ring of keys off one templar’s belt. “Good to know your observational skills are top notch, Junior.”

Carver glared. “Sod off.”

“Blondie, get over here,” Varric said, sorting through the keys for one that would fit the lock. “Make sure we’re grabbing the right guy.”

Anders glanced over at Hawke, who was pulling aside shutters to peer inside each cell, his staff raised and glowing to light each interior. He left him to his voyeurism, or whatever it was he was doing.

Thrask waited by the door, ready to signal them if they needed to get out of sight quickly. Not that Anders was sure he could force himself to hide in one of the solitary cells even if the option was bringing the entire Gallows down on their heads.

“Come on,” Varric urged. “In case you haven’t noticed, they didn’t build the peepholes with dwarves in mind.”

Anders slid open the shutter on pitch black nothing.

 _I can’t do this._

A year of solitary confinement threatened to rush back and paralyze him. Justice could feel Anders’ fear, but was far enough removed to help raise his staff and push forth the will needed to light its tip, casting a faint glow into the cell.

“Karl.”

Anders looked down at Varric, stirred out of his fear by a new sense of urgency. “Get that door open.”

Varric tried a key in the lock and then another before Anders heard the lock mechanism grind and release. He jerked the door open, and despite his lingering horror of such confinement, went immediately to Karl’s side.

He had not seen Karl in more than a year, since his last escape from Kinloch Hold, but he would know the man anywhere. He looked older, there were lines on his face that Anders did not remember from before, more grey in his hair and beard, but he consoled himself that Karl’s forehead was also unmarred by the Chantry’s brand of Tranquility.

“Karl?” he put an arm under Karl’s shoulders to raise him up, but there was no response. “Karl, you have to wake up now.” He gave his arm a hard pinch, but it did not stir him. “It’s Anders. I’m here for you, but _you have to wake up.”_

“If he isn’t going to wake, we’ll have to carry him.” Aveline’s voice jolted Anders with surprise. He had been so focused – _Too focused,_ Justice informed him – on Karl that he had forgotten almost everything else.

Anders hooked one of Karl’s arms over his shoulder and tried to pull him up, but he was dead weight, too heavy for one mage to manage. Aveline sighed through her nose and pushed into the tiny cell, levering Karl up off the bed more easily than Anders could ever have managed.

Maybe later he would let his pride feel wounded by that, but he probably would not have the time.

“Carver, go first with Thrask,” Hawke was suddenly just there, giving orders. “Varric, watch the rear. Anders, stick with Aveline, be ready to take Karl from her if it comes down to a fight. Remember, keep it quiet. No loud battle cries, no flashy loud magic if that’s your thing,” he said, directing the last at Anders. “No stopping to loot, no ‘I just want to see what’s in this chest’. We have what we came for.”

In that moment, Garrett Hawke reminded him very much of the Vigil’s Warden-Commander, and Anders finally had a first glimmer of understanding of how the man had pulled together such an unlikely group of companions.

He nodded to show his understanding while the others gave their agreement in mutters or nods of their own. Carver, Thrask, and Aveline all pulled their helmets down to hide their faces.

Hawke strode along a few paces behind Carver and Thrask as the two men led them out of the solitary confinement wing. Behind them he heard the subtle creak of Varric pulling the door closed.

 _How many other mages were in those cells?_ Justice asked, inciting a twinge of guilt from Anders that he had not even thought to look.

 _I’ll ask Hawke when we’re out of here,_ he told himself and Justice. _You’re right that Karl is a distraction, but he’s also a symbol of what we endure as mages. If a fight isn’t personal, what is it?_

Justice’s response so simple that it was not even a rebuke: _Justice._

Without Thrask they would have been lost both literally and figuratively. The inner corridors of the Gallows had been designed to be mazelike when it had been constructed as a prison. It was after all much more difficult to escape when you never knew which turning would lead you straight into a guard post.

Twice they had to stop at Thrask’s signal, once backtracking hurriedly around another corner in time to hear heavy footfalls pass where they had been standing moments before.

Thrask took his leave of them at the entrance to the smugglers tunnels where Carver and Aveline’s armor had been hidden.

“If you thought things were bad after Samson was ousted, they’re about to get worse,” he told Anders. “Tell the Mistress—” He did not say Selby’s name in front of Hawke and his people. “—not to come this way until I send word. Stay low, Anders, and if I can find anything more about what they’re doing in there, I’ll get word out somehow.”

He clasped Anders’ arm for a moment before striding back up the stairs toward the Gallows.

“Now the easy part,” Hawke said, stripping off his mask. “How many smugglers do you think we can kill on our way out?”

• • •

Anders fell asleep long past dawn, sitting on the floor at the side of his bed where Karl lay. He had tried everything he could think of to wake him, but nothing had elicited even a hint of response. Karl breathed, he could be made to swallow water with effort, but he did not respond to any stimulus.

 _Why do you care so much?_ Justice had asked him. _It is not for love. I remember Kristoff’s love for Aura and what you feel is not the same._

 _Does it have to be the same?_ Anders had asked in return. _If we had been together somewhere other than the tower, I might have been able to love him, but that doesn’t mean I never cared about him more than I should._

 _But what you feel for him…_ Justice was clearly confused, Anders could taste the swirling pink and pale green of it. _It feels like what you feel when you think of me._

Anders felt the world stop for him at that revelation before he tried to shrug it off with a joke. _Would you rather I hated the voice in my head? Self-love is a gift, even if you’re still prudish about the most fun forms of it._

Anders slept, and in his dreams, Karl woke and spoke to him with Justice’s voice, “We cannot allow others to suffer as I have.”

• • •

 _You’re sleeping now, or rather you’re still sleeping even though it’s been a week. I find myself doubting whether you will ever wake. I want to think that because you aren’t Tranquil, you aren’t lost, but I feel no spark of you in your body. Are you already gone? Is that what they’ve done?_

 _You’re still at risk. Your phylactery will lead them to you eventually and I don’t know what to do. With Hawke’s help I was allowed to visit the Black Emporium and consult with its owner. Xenon says there’s an amulet that can shield one from detection, even from a phylactery’s blood magic, but I don’t have the coin. No apostate on the run would._

 _Hawke says if I accompany him on his expedition to the Deep Roads, he’ll give me a share of the profits which might be enough to buy you that amulet._

 _He says we’ll take you to his friend Merrill’s clan on Sundermount and she’ll watch over you while we’re gone. It’s safer there than Kirkwall, but I just don’t know. My experience with Dalish women hasn’t been all that good, but he vouches for her. He says maybe their Keeper will have some insight._

 _I think I’m going to do it. I hate leaving you to someone else’s care, but I’m stuck. I’m supposed to be a spirit healer, all transcendent and competent and— bollocks. I’ve got nothing. I’ll keep writing this journal while I’m gone and either I’ll read it to you when I get back, or you can read it yourself you old bastard._

 _Wake up and read it. Please._


	5. Chapter 5

The Dalish encampment at Sundermount had not changed in the weeks Anders had been gone. He had not expected it to, except in some tiny, self-absorbed corner of his mind that always expected places to change when his life changed. Elves still stared at him suspiciously, the caravels still stood without halla to fill their traces, and Keeper Marethari waited for him at the foot of the path up the mountain as though she had never moved.

The Deep Roads had been everything he remembered and hated, and more. The darkspawn had been expected, even the spiders were not a big surprise. The dragon had not been a pleasant surprise, the corrupted song of the red lyrium had made him want to puncture his own eardrums, and the angry, greedy rock wraiths had chilled him at the thought of an afterlife of hunger, rejected by even the Void.

But it was Bartrand’s betrayal that cut him most deeply. He barely knew the man, had no reason to trust him, but Bartrand had left his own _brother_ to die in the Deep Roads. Over what? Coin? If he had not been a greedy bastard – with apologies to Varric’s mother – he would have come out with more coin than he could have imagined.

The very same coin that had jingled in his pouch when Anders had returned to the Black Emporium to buy the amulet that would make Karl invisible to detection even using his phylactery.

He felt the weight of it in his pocket as he inclined his head to Marethari.

Marethari greeted him with more warmth than he had ever expected from a Dalish elf to a _shemlen._ _“Andaran atish’an,_ Anders.”

 _“Ma serannas,_ Keeper,” Anders replied, summoning up what little Elvish he had picked up from Velanna. And wouldn’t she be surprised to see Anders talking to a Dalish Keeper this way? “Is—Is Karl alright?”

Her smile turned sad. “Where are your friends?”

“They had business in Kirkwall, I came alone,” he said, but fear clenched in his gut. Did she think he needed someone there for him when she delivered bad news?

 _Someone_ is _here for you,_ Justice reminded him.

He gave Justice a wordless acknowledgement and took a step closer to Marethari. He felt almost more than saw in his peripheral vision, that the elves around him stopped what they were doing and tensed. “Is he dead?”

Marethari looked past him at her clan and shook her head before putting a hand on Anders’ arm. “His body still lives. Walk with me and I will take you to him.”

He let her lead him past the camp, bypassing the steep path up the mountain, before stopping at a cave entrance. “This way is guarded. You must stay close to me, do not stray or you will be seen as an enemy. Do you understand?”

“Right, stay close,” Anders said. “I can do that.”

He followed her into the cave so close on her heels that he bumped into her back when she stopped. “Not that close.”

“Right, sorry.” He fell back a couple of steps and followed her step for step. While he had the utmost of respect for Dalish magic, he was simply too tired after the Deep Roads to court a fight if he could avoid it.

She stopped him again at the top of a flight of stairs that led down into a vast natural cavern. “The Varterral will examine you. Do nothing unless I tell you to, and do _not_ call any magic. Do you understand?”

“What’s a Varterral?”

Marethari half-smiled and started down the stairs. “An ancient elven guardian.”

The ground shook.

“A very large, ancient elven guardian,” she amended and walked out into the cavern with Anders hurrying to stay close.

The ground shook again and a creature detached itself from the roof and dropped down in front of them. His first thought was _Just when I thought I had seen the biggest spider ever in the Deep Roads._

He second thoughts caught up to the fact that it had five huge legs and an upper body that, while not humanoid, was closer to humanoid than arachnoid.

His third, fourth, and fifth thoughts – one for each of the creature’s legs – were all variations on _Run!_ and _Kill it with fire!_

But he managed to stay still with Marethari’s hand on his arm, even when the horrible thing leaned down and examined him. He trembled as Marethari’s hand tightened, warning him not to move, staring into the face of a creature that looked covered in both bark and stone with huge legs that he could just see impaling him, pinning him to the ground like the gruesome inverse of some scholar’s butterfly collection.

It swung its head toward Marethari, giving her an almost cursory inspection before it leapt straight up into the air, its camouflage with the roof so complete that even knowing it was there, Anders could not pick it out from the rock.

“Good,” Marethari said. “It has been growing restless, but still remembers its role. Come.”

She led him through the cavern, directly under where the Varterral had dropped down, even though Anders would have preferred to skirt the edges to avoid having his vision of impalement come true. He cast worried glances upward until she led him through a small door at the back of the cavern and into another warren of tunnels that eventually let them out into a stone room that had been carved out of the natural tunnels.

In that room lay Karl in the center of a circle of runes drawn on the stone floor. Seated outside the circle, a Dalish girl rose from her embroidery when Marethari and Anders entered.

His fear and anger flared immediately. “What have you done to him! I brought him here to be kept safe, not…” he thrust an arm out at Karl. “…whatever this is!”

“We are protecting him,” Marethari replied, calm in the face of his anger. “Baselle, wait outside.”

The girl, Baselle, ducked her head and hurried past them.

Marethari watched her leave before turning back to Anders. “I can see that you care deeply for your friend, and I do not have good news for you.”

She indicated the circle. “This keeps out spirits from the Beyond. We are protecting your friend’s body, because his spirit is gone.”

Her eyes were soft, sympathetic when she tipped her head up at him. “I do not know what they did to him, but I have tried everything I know. What made your friend the man he was is gone, moved on to wherever you believe spirits go after this life. All that is left is… empty.”

“But…” Anders tried to wet his lips, but his whole mouth had gone dry. “…he’s still alive,” he said helplessly. “He’s right there.” He could see Karl’s chest rising and falling as though he were simply deeply asleep.

“His body is there,” Marethari said gently. “But only his body.”

“But I have this for him,” Anders said, pulling the amulet from his pocket. “To keep the templars from finding him.”

He knew it was a foolish thing to say even as the words were tumbling from his lips, but she was telling him that Karl was dead. Without his spirit there, what was left was nothing but a cruel reminder of a good man.

He clenched his fist around the carved disc and shook his head. “No. You have to be wrong. You just weren’t looking right.”

He turned away from her to go to Karl, striding toward the circle only to be brought up short against something as impenetrable as a wall at its edge.

His rage and frustration flared incandescent at the obstruction and Justice was simply _there_ , breaking over his skin, spilling from his eyes, taking over for Anders while part of Anders sat in the back of his mind and wept for the loss of a friend.

 **“What trick is this?”** Justice asked from Anders’ mouth. **“What lies have you told?”**

Marethari drew herself up. “None. What are you?”

 **“I am—”** _Anders._ Justice. **“—his friend. What have you done?”**

Anders felt his mouth move with a kind of creeping horror. No, this was not his life where he could not remember who was who. _Justice, let go!_

 _She will hurt you._ It was possible, Anders could see the telltale verdant haze gathering around her that he had always associated with Velanna’s magic.

 _We’re glowing and scaring her! Let go!_

Anders slumped as Justice pulled back, the brilliant light of the Fade falling away along with his presence. Again, part of Anders wanted to just let Justice take the reins and go while he lost himself in the luxury of grief, but he could not allow it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, backing away from the circle and leaning against the wall. “I had a friend, a spirit of Justice, who was thrust into this world by the act of a powerful pride abomination. When the body of a dead man he inhabited decayed too much, I offered him a living home.” He slid down and cradled his head in his hands. “I took a spirit into my soul and changed myself forever.”

He could feel that Justice could not fully comprehend his grief, nor his vague sense of shame at what came after their joining, but he welcomed the warmth of Justice’s gratitude in remembering the offer Anders had made and the moment of his acceptance.

Marethari was silent, leaving Anders to his thoughts for at least ten minutes while she crossed the circle and leaned over Karl’s body, tending to him and keeping her thoughts to herself while Anders collected himself.

He stayed where he was until he could feel her approach him, standing above him until Anders finally looked up at her. “Child…” She extended her hand and he flinched from the glow that bathed it until it sank down into his skin, easing away some of the exhaustion of his travels. “What you have done is generous, but so dangerous. Do you even understand the first part of the danger you have brought on yourself and your,” she hesitated, “spirit friend?”

He shrugged. “There are so many parts. The part where I’m an abomination? Or the part where sometimes I feel like I’m feeling everything doubled? Or the part where sometimes I start to glow?”

She crouched easily in front of him to bring her eyes on level with his. “No, I mean the part where you two may create a demon.”

Anders tasted Justice’s twist of acid green denial that merged with his own refusal to even consider the idea. “Neither of us will do that. I am a healer, and he is not pride or rage, he is Justice.”

“But you know,” Marethari persisted, “that demons are spirits perverted and debased by their wants?”

Anders and Justice remembered discussions about demons and Justice’s assertion that he would not become one. Anders could not bring himself to answer.

“And you say that everything you feel is doubled,” she said, guiding him down a path of thought he did not want to follow. “You would not be a man if you did not have wants.”

Anders buried his face in his hands until he felt Marethari’s hands on his, dry and soft, pulling his hands away to draw his eyes up to her again.

“I do not doubt you or your friend.” She smiled sadly. “Although I do think you two made a foolish decision.”

“Well thank you,” he said sharply, drawing his hands away.

“Shh… child. I have a foolish idea of my own, and I am going to offer you and your friend a choice. Then I am going to leave you here to think on it. Baselle will fetch me when you have decided.”

• • •

 _I guess there’s really no point in keeping this journal for you to read when you wake up. You’ve gone on without me. Funny, you’re older, but I always thought I’d go first. Call it my reckless lifestyle._

 _I guess this is just to work out my thoughts on my own. When I leave them in my head, they run in circles, play leapfrog, and fall down flat having gone nowhere at all._

 _The question is, would you hate me if I gave your body a new life without you?_

 _No, no, backtrack.  
1\. I kill your body. You know that will kill a piece of me, but I could do it for you.  
2\. I let your body stay like this with someone to care for you constantly. To feed you, clean you, tend you like a plant.  
3\. We take Marethari’s mad offer to let Justice move on from my body to yours._

 _Would you hate me for any of those choices? I think you’d hate 2 because you never wanted to be a burden. 1 makes me ache just to consider, but so does 3._

 _I know Justice can’t help but read this as I write it. Not that he needs to, the thoughts are right there in our mind, but it helps to see it on the page._

 _3 scares me. What if you aren’t gone? What if you are? What will I do when I wake up alone again in my own head?_

 _But I think you would agree to 3 because it would be a crime to warp a virtue into a demon. It would be an injustice against the Maker and his creations. And because you were always more practical than me. That body in the circle has your eyes, your nose, your lips that I’ve kissed, but it isn’t you._

 _I wish you could tell me yourself._   



	6. Chapter 6

Anders took up a vigil at the edge of Karl’s circle, his back against the stone wall while his thoughts ran in circles. Writing them down had clarified his choices, and he was fairly confident he knew which choice he would make, but part of him still hesitated.

Baselle tended to Karl without acknowledging Anders’ presence. She wiped his face, propped him up to patiently dribble sips of water into his mouth until his body responded automatically to swallow it. She rolled him to one side, and after many hours of silence, she rolled him to his other side.

He was just something to be tended to, not the man Anders remembered so well, and Anders could not even cross the circle to do the tending himself. He wondered how so much sorrow could coexist with such fury at the fate of a good man. And for what?

The rational questions were not what held him back. What held him back was fear that his raging grief was skewing his fundamental definition of rationality.

 _We should do it._

Anders startled from a fitful doze with Justice’s words in his mind. He had barely noticed when his head had nodded and his chin had dropped to his chest. Of course Justice had kept on thinking about the choice presented to them while Anders succumbed to exhaustion.

“What?” he said aloud, startling Baselle from her embroidery. He shook his head at her. “Sorry. Dozed off.”

What?

 _If Karl’s spirit is gone, we have no other way to know what was done to him. I will have access to his memories as I did with Kristoff. To do this is to aid us in finding justice for your friend. We both want that for him._

Justice’s reasoning sounded rational to him, but still he hesitated to agree. He could not hide the first craven denial to spring to mind. _But I’ll be alone._

Rose and aquamarine spread over his tongue like the hues of a semi-precious stone that glimmered warm from one angle and cool at another. If this were always the taste of Justice’s moods, Anders would never let him go.

 _You will never be alone. I will never abandon you. We knew there would be sacrifices, but we will do this for all mages that no more will be stripped from their bodies as Karl was._

Anders sighed and looked up. “Baselle, could you please go to the Keeper and tell her that I’ve decided.”

• • •

“You never said how this would work,” Anders said once Marethari returned – without Baselle, he noticed. “When Justice and I joined, he was leaving a dead body that didn’t have a soul. Now he and I are…” He struggled for a green metaphor, since his limited experience with elves – Velanna – told him they liked green, earthy things. “…tangled at the root.”

“I did not say this would be easy,” Marethari replied. “Nor that it would not have its risks, but I have been forced to think long and hard on such matters. You have met Merrill. I have often wondered if there would be anything I could do to help her if she went too far.”

“Too far?” Anders asked. He had met Merrill, but he knew little about her beyond the fact that it was with her intercession that Karl had been brought here, and that he owed her for securing the Keeper’s assistance in caring for him while Anders was away.

“She has an obsession,” Marethari said sadly. “One I will speak of at another time. For now it is enough to know that love for her motivates me.”

Anders’ curiosity was piqued, and at another time, under other circumstances, he would have pressed Marethari for elaboration then and there. At that point he had concerns that were far more pressing than the satisfaction of his curiosity.

“Got it. Love. So how do you think we can do this?”

Marethari’s expression hardened. “I must kill you.”

 _“What?”_ Anders shouted and felt a momentary frisson of guilt as though he had just shouted in front of someone who was sleeping instead of truly gone. He flicked his eyes to Karl, almost hoping the shout would have elicited a reaction, but he was truly oblivious.

“I must apply what I know of demons to your situation,” Marethari told him, holding up a hand to forestall his protest that Justice was not a demon. “There are enough similarities. I will break the circle for long enough to admit you before I close it again. We cannot risk your friend’s body, nor chance that a demon will fill the gap before your spirit is released.”

She turned away and scuffed away one of the runes with her foot, looking expectantly to Anders.

He had to move. If he dithered, he was opening Karl to more risk. If what she was saying was true, then they were all very lucky that nothing had found Karl before she put up the circle.

A thought struck him, driving the breath from him in a gasp. Dear Maker…

“There are more mages like Karl in the Gallows.” And none of them had been protected. He had walked straight into Karl’s cell without a problem.

He had never even asked about the Kirkwall Circle, he had made no effort to contact Selby or Thrask, he had not stopped for gossip or even for rest. He had simply parted from his companions inside the city, gone straight to the Black Emporium, and then turned around and pushed himself for the entire trip to Sundermount.

“Anders,” Marethari said, breaking his horrified paralysis. “The circle is open.”

At her reminder, he left his staff against the wall and stepped inside, though his thoughts were still reeling with the image of a half-dozen empty mages filled by Maker only knew what. They could decimate the Gallows unless there was more to the story than he knew.

Marethari knelt to redraw the broken rune. When it was completed, Anders felt a moment of claustrophobia before he could breathe normally again. He supposed if she wanted to, she could leave him trapped in here forever, and wasn’t that a horror of a thought?

“So, about the part where I die,” he said, aiming for casual but only sounding suspicious.

Marethari drew a knife from its sheath at her waist. “Who knows better than a healer where to strike the killing blow?”

“I didn’t say I was ready to die for this,” Anders protested. He could feel Justice stirring, ready to protect them both if she made a single wrong move. There had been a time when he would have been certain he could manage it on his own, but Justice had taken up residence right in the middle of his strongest connection to the Fade, and his magic had not been the same since.

“You’ll get better,” she said with a hint of a smile. “I will heal your body as soon as I feel the two of you separate from it. Your spirit of justice must focus on finding Karl’s body. It must fill the void there. You must remember your own body with all the strength you have in you. It will be easier for you; this body has always been meant for you.”

“So you’ll just…?” He made a stabbing motion rather than come out and say it.

“Yes.”

“Do you really believe this will work? Or are you just looking to convince an abomination to let you put him out of his misery?”

Marethari took a step back as though he had struck her. “I can see that you are a man who is still capable of thinking of others than yourself. I will not be your murderer.”

This was mad. Terrifying. Mad. Desperate. Fully and utterly _mad_. And when had that ever stopped him from a course of action?

Anders sighed and removed his coat first and then his shirt, responding to Marethari’s unspoken surprise. “I don’t want blood on my clothes. I’m taking you at your word that I’ll be wearing them again.”

He brushed past her in the confines of the circle to kneel beside Karl where he lay on a rough pallet on the floor. He gently rolled Karl onto his back and took one of his hands between his own, feeling its warmth against his palms.

 _Your memories say he would agree to this,_ Justice said, sounding subdued. Anders tongue felt ashy, but it could as easily be his anxiety as Justice’s.

“Karl would agree to this,” Anders said aloud. “He wasn’t happy to hear what I had done with Justice. I think he would want us separated, and I know that he would want to keep other mages from going through whatever he did.”

He kept Karl’s hand clasped in his as he lay down on the cold stone floor, flinching when his bare skin broke with goose bumps at the contact.

Marethari knelt beside him and his eyes flicked to the dagger in her hand. His instincts shouted at him to run, but where could he run that he would not be haunted by the memory of Karl and the thought of other mages lost the same way?

He told himself that he would not look. He told himself that he _would_ look. He told himself that if he simply didn’t scream like a child and scramble away, that was all he needed to keep his pride intact.

He closed his eyes and tried to convey to Justice how much their pairing had meant to him, even if it had been frustrating or even terrifying at times. There was a word there for what Justice meant to him, he knew it, but it was one he had never used…

And then the knife thrust into his chest and the word fled from his grasp, chased away by an all-consuming flare of pain and terror. He could not draw a breath and he would never be certain if it was real or a morbid fantasy that he could feel his upper body growing heavy with blood spilling out of his heart into his chest cavity.

He opened his eyes to stare up at Marethari, pleading with her for something. He reached his free hand out to her and she took it, holding him with her unwavering gaze.

“Remember,” she said, “the spirit must go to Karl. Anders must return to his own body. Remember.”

He squeezed her hand and Karl’s with rapidly-numbing fingers while blackness washed over his vision and swept him under.

• • •

There was no more pain.

The world shimmered around them the way they remembered the Fade, except the gleaming wall of power that circled them, keeping them from giving up this living world and fleeing beyond the Veil.

They watched Marethari set the bloodied knife aside and lean over the dead man.

They were the dead man.

They stood over the dead man and looked at him with new eyes. He was nicely formed, even if his bare upper body bore more than a few scars. They liked the lines around his lips and eyes that said that the dead man had an easy smile.

They remembered that the dead man did not smile as often as he used to.

They watched with almost academic disinterest as Marethari gathered strands of magic together, pushing them into the dead man’s chest, lighting him from within with her power. They could see past flesh and bone into the man where she forced spilled blood back into a severed artery, emptying his body cavity like a water skin. They watched her magic reconnect the edges of the artery and draw back, closing and healing the path that the knife had taken on its way to inflict its damage.

It left a pretty, unmarred body, but still, nothing more than a corpse.

They were detached about the process, part of them viewing it from the eye of experience, remembering the flow of power through a body they no longer had. That part remembered performing similar miracles for others, but leaving an unmarked corpse was a waste of power.

Then Marethari blazed so brightly with power that they felt an atavistic urge to look away lest they be blinded. They had no eyes and they watched past the glare, witnessing the miracle of the Keeper giving away that blazing energy, shoving it into the corpse to make it arch and shudder.

They exploded with agony.

• • •

“Anders, find your body. Justice go to Karl.”

He was hearing a familiar voice, familiar words.

“Anders, find your body. Justice go to Karl.”

He ached. He was wounded, somewhere, somewhere so deep, so severe that he would, _could_ never heal. Maker, it hurt so much he wanted to be dead, because he could not endure this.

“Anders, find your body. Justice go to Karl.”

He was starting to hate that woman’s voice. He had been hearing it for… always?

He made a sound and her voice, blessedly, stopped.

He felt his body move and the sound came again. It was his, he could feel it, but past the pain, he could not identify it.

“Anders. Open your eyes.”

There was that voice again. He made a sound in reply, meant to tell her to please for the sake of sweet Andraste’s wine-filled navel, _shut up._

It was a sob.

He was sobbing in the dark behind his closed eyelids.

He was sobbing _alone_ in the dark behind his closed eyelids.

Anders forced his eyes open even as another sob escaped him.

“Anders?” an elven woman leaned over him.

He nodded and sucked in a shuddering breath, trying to quell the sobs. That was what he was called.

“Justice?”

 _He remembered._

That was the source of the wound that would never heal.

He shook his head at Keeper Marethari and swallowed the next sob. “No,” he croaked.

She looked past him and he followed her gaze. Karl.

He rolled up onto his knees with some vague expectation that it should hurt, but he felt whole and even physically rested. He still had Karl’s hand clasped in his.

“Justice?” He leaned over Karl’s body and watched his face for some sign of life beyond the slow rise and fall of his chest.

“Justice?” he said again, leaning closer.

Karl’s hand spasmed in his before Anders was suddenly looking into wide blue eyes and Karl’s free hand came up to pull Anders down into a hard kiss.


	7. Chapter 7

Anders might have imagined any number of reactions from Justice upon finding himself in a new body, violence among them. He could not have imagined that Justice would clasp him by the back of the head to pull him into a kiss. He stiffened, trying to pull away, but the hand in his hair was firm, insistent, the lips were familiar, and after a moment, even the way they moved was familiar.

He could smell Karl, feel his beard against his face, and when he braced himself, his hand was on Karl’s chest.

He let the struggle go, not sure if he was kissing Justice, or through some miracle, Karl, not sure if he was kissing one of them hello or goodbye or both at the same time. All he knew was that he had a hole in his soul where Justice used to be, and he was feeling a familiar touch in a familiar way. It could not fill the void, but it was something they could still share.

When their lips parted, it was as natural as a hundred other times Anders had kissed Karl, and when the hand on the back of his head released him and moved instead to cup his cheek, he was convinced, just for a moment, that somehow Karl had returned from wherever Marethari had thought he had gone.

But when they parted, the glimpse of a faint, Fade-blue haze over Karl’s eyes shattered the illusion.

Anders sat back on his heels and wiped a hand over his mouth, feeling his lips still full and sensitive from the kiss. “Justice?” He sounded shaky, but he thought he would have sounded shaky without that little surprise from Justice. “What was that?”

Justice pushed himself up on Karl’s elbow – how long would it take for him to think of the body as simply Justice’s? – and gave Anders an unreadable look. “He would have wanted to kiss you goodbye,” he said, and the voice was almost Karl’s, but it sparked a memory – it held a note of what Anders had always thought was Kristoff’s voice as well.

At least it sounded human.

“You kissed me because Karl would have wanted to?” Anders asked, his voice rising with incredulity.

Justice looked past Anders, eyes fixing on Marethari behind him and after a pause said, “Yes.”

Marethari took that as some kind of signal, taking up her knife and cleaning it on a scrap of cloth before returning it to its sheath. “You may break the circle for your friend, Anders.”

“Is this a test?” Anders asked, looking over his shoulder at Marethari.

“Most things are,” she said and left the circle without breaking it.

Justice squeezed his hand, reminding him that he had not released it since before (he had died) they had separated. He squeezed back and let go, pushing himself to his feet with a groan of effort that had little to do with physical fatigue. Later he could allow himself time to feel everything that came of the actions taken in this room.

“Can you stand up?” he asked Justice.

Justice gave the question real thought before answering, “This body is weak, but I believe I can stand.”

He moved slowly and levered himself off the floor, swaying once and putting a hand out for balance, finding it by bracing against the invisible wall of the circle until he was standing upright. Something about his posture was different from Karl’s. Anders thought it was as though he expected the weight of armor, which reminded him of first encountering Justice in the Fade – a creature of pure spirit that had still imagined itself clad in full armor.

 _Let’s see if the circle still holds me,_ Anders thought to himself, realizing after a moment that any response he would get would be truly only his own voice. It made him catch his breath before he scuffed his foot over the runes, encountering no resistance as he broke the circle.

“There,” he said to Marethari, who had been watching from the “safe” side of the circle. “I’m all alone in here.” He tapped his forehead and hoped he did not sound bitter. “I don’t know how much that helped you with your problem.”

“Nor do I,” Marethari said. “But I have learned from this and I pray that I can someday learn enough, whatever enough may be.”

Anders forced a smile. “Now that we’ve worked it out, let me ask you something.”

Marethari nodded for him to go on.

He shivered in the chill air and went to retrieve his shirt, pulling it on while he asked, “Did you really expect it to work?”

He pulled his head free of the cloth to try to read Marethari’s expression, but she gave little away before she said, “No.“

“Oh, good, because I’d hate to think you actually had a _good_ plan in mind when you stabbed me in the chest,” Anders said, pulling on his coat. He felt the weight of the amulet in his pocket and took it out, holding it in his palm. He had gone back to the Deep Roads to afford this blighted thing and it had already been too late.

Justice left the broken circle to hold out his hand for the amulet. As though he had read Anders’ thoughts about it he said, “The phylactery will guide templars to the body, not the spirit. I will have use for the amulet.”

Anders handed it over and watched Justice pull the chain over Karl’s head and settle it around Karl’s neck. “I guess that makes it worth the trip to the Deep Roads,” he said without conviction.

“We will make it worth it,” Justice assured him. “When we use what Karl knew against them.”

Anders smoothed his hands down his arms against the sudden rise of chill over his skin. If he were any more off balance he would fall over, but now he needed to overcome his unwillingness to hear the truth and listen to what Justice had to say.

He shot a glance at Marethari and decided she had as much right to hear the truth, both as a mage and as her clan’s Keeper. There was also the little matter of what they owed her for separating them, although with the wound in his soul still raw, he was unsure how indebted he felt to her for that.

Some part of him waited for Justice to remind him that he was not dead and should be grateful. When the reminder did not come, it made the wound bleed just a bit more.

“I guess that means that you have Karl’s memories.”

“Yes.” Justice swayed on his feet and Anders hurried to brace him.

“Your—” _Karl’s._ “—muscles haven’t had any exercise in weeks,” he told him, guiding him back to the pallet in the middle of the now-defunct circle. “You can tell us sitting down. In fact.” He settled down on the floor alongside Justice, “I’ll sit with you. Just in the name of solidarity. Not because being dead took anything out of me.” He grimaced. “Other than, you know, you.”

This was going just brilliantly. Better to just cut to the chase and stop dithering.

“What happened to Karl?”

Marethari remained standing, watching them expectantly while Justice, not generally one for storytelling, gathered his thoughts and Karl’s memories. He scratched the right side of his jaw under his shaggy, untended beard before going on, an absent gesture that made Anders’ breath catch at its familiarity. Half the time Karl had never noticed when he did that.

“The Chantry is looking for an alternative to Tranquility,” Justice began.

 _“Shit.”_ Anders said under his breath and quailed when Justice turned a disapproving look his way that was purely Justice even in Karl’s face.

“Don’t let me stop you,” he said. “You’ve got a body of your own again. Go on.”

Justice looked from him to Marethari before he turned his attention back to Anders for the nod to go on. “They are experimenting. Ser Alrik took great pleasure in telling Karl that the goal is to separate mages from the Fade without separating them from their emotions.”

“How noble,” Anders scoffed.

Justice ignored him to continue. “He took still greater pleasure in telling Karl that the Divine has given her people unqualified permission to use as many mages as it takes to achieve that goal. Dozens, hundreds, every mage in Thedas, if that is what it takes. Until the only mages are those whose loyalty to the Divine are unquestioned.”

Marethari’s startled exclamation in Elvish needed no translation. “When they have done this to all of your mages, they will try to do the same to the People. This cannot be.”

“What else did Alrik say?” Anders asked with lips that felt suddenly numb. The Chantry’s goal was madness, obviously conceived by someone who could never understand what it was to be a mage – to feel the heady rush of the Fade channeled into fire or ice or healing or any number of other nuances to the power. It was nothing that could be separated from emotions – magic bubbled straight up from the wellspring of a mage’s emotions, wherever or whatever that might be.

How else did they think they found out so many mage children? Children, who could not control their emotions, and because of that, could not control their magic. Take away one, the other could not remain.

Even if they could succeed, how many former mages would wish for the numbness of Tranquility rather than this magical castration? How many would live the rest of their lives with a vital part of their souls simply stripped away by fools’ blind fear? How many would choose to die instead?

Anders ached down to the core of his being from the loss of a part of his soul – Justice – that had only been there a few months. He could not imagine the pain if he lived to feel the loss of his magic as well.

“So they took Karl’s magic but they forced out his soul at the same time?”

“They did not. They failed to achieve any of their goals.” Justice raised a hand to demonstrate. It crackled with electricity – Karl had always had a gift with electricity – before a stray flicker of it jolted across the space between them and made Anders’ entire body spasm with the shock.

“What?” Anders gasped when the electricity released him. _“What was that for?”_

Justice’s expression was stricken. “It was not supposed to do that. I controlled it the way I learned with you. It should not have lashed out.”

“Each mage’s power is different,” Marethari said, moving to kneel by Anders to examine him. “It follows that what you have learned from Anders, while it will help you, will not be enough to control Karl’s magic. You should use his memories to aid you.”

“And never do that again,” Anders added, making no effort to hide his annoyance while Marethari checked his eyes and healed the burns on his arm and opposite hand where the bolt had grounded out. “Maker’s balls, Justice, that hurt.”

• • •

 _It’s supposed to be an alternative to Tranquility. I still can’t believe that the Chantry is acting no better than the blackest tales of the Black Divine, but Justice remembers everything. Maker, but he’s picked up some of Karl’s gestures, like the body remembers them. It makes me ache every time he scratches the right side of his jaw under his beard._

 _They didn’t care that they were leaving those husks behind as invitations to demons. I don’t even know how they were lucky enough not to have had abominations bursting free of those cells long before we rescued Karl._

 _That doesn’t mean they aren’t running wild through the Gallows now. We have to get back to Kirkwall. Just as soon as Justice gets back from taking care of his first call of nature without me running the body. He’s been gone a long time. I wonder if he’s going to come back traumatized._

• • •

Justice was not traumatized, but neither was Karl’s body in any condition for the trek back to Kirkwall. Weeks of inactivity had taken their toll on his muscle strength. By the time he made it back from answering his call of nature, he was pale and sweating from the exertion.

“I do not understand,” he told Anders as he helped him lie back down on the pallet. “Kristoff’s body was dead, but I had far fewer limitations.”

“That is why,” Marethari said, passing Anders a water skin to hold for Justice while he gave him sips from it. “A living body wishes to continue living. To do that it must recognize its limits.”

“I’ve imposed on you for weeks,” Anders said, handing the skin back to Marethari. “Can I ask for another day or two while K—Justice adjusts? There’s no need to have Baselle come back, I’ll take care of him myself, and that…” He considered calling the Varterral a “thing” and decided not to insult her ancient elven guardian monster. “… thing will keep us from wandering anywhere we shouldn’t, I’m sure.” Right, he had _meant_ well, but there had often been a disconnect between his mouth and his good sense. Without Justice standing between his tongue and saying what he thought, he would just get back to sticking his foot in his mouth more often.

It was almost refreshing.

Marethari did not give any sign of taking offense. “You may stay. I will return in the morning. If you are ready to leave at that time I shall escort you past the Varterral.” She fixed him with a pointed look. “To leave here without one of my clan as escort would be unwise.”

Anders remembered the huge beast that had examined him and suppressed a shudder. “I’ve done my share of unwise things for the day. Justice?”

“I will not leave the areas you indicate,” Justice said, and Anders believed it, not just because when Justice gave his word it was law, but because he looked too tired to brave the Varterral.

Marethari smoothed her hands down the front of her robe before turning to leave them. “I will send someone to bring you food.”

“My thanks,” Justice said, pushing himself up into a sitting position.

Anders clucked his tongue in irritation at his stubbornness and pushed him back down. “Rest.”


	8. Chapter 8

Anders woke in utter blackness with someone’s arm thrown over him and a strangely familiar body pressed against his back. He recognized the soft rasp of Karl’s breathing and relaxed back against him before the rest of the story caught up to his waking mind.

This was not Karl’s room in Kinloch Hold on one of the nights when they had fallen asleep together despite the risk. For one thing Karl’s bed was much softer than the stone floor Anders’ bedroll was laid out on.

He sighed and moved Justice’s arm to be able to sit up, summoning a wisp of magic to light the room until he could find the lantern and re-light it.

The spell wisp was supposed to be barely brighter than candlelight. What he got instead was a daylight flare of light so bright that it dazzled Anders’ eyes. _“Shit!”_ He cursed and banished the spell, blinking away residual light flashes while he felt Justice stir beside him.

“What’s happening?” Justice asked, sounding groggy with sleep while he pushed himself upright.

“Spell bollocksed,” Anders said, putting a hand out blindly to find Justice’s chest to try to push him back down. “It’s nothing. Lie down.”

“I am not helpless,” Justice said, moving Anders’ hand off his chest. “What happened? What spell would you need to cast now?”

“Light,” Anders replied irritably, still seeing bright orbs in the darkness. “I just wanted enough light to find the lantern and light it again. Instead I blinded myself.”

He could feel Justice behind him, the shift of the pallet’s blankets as he made himself more comfortable, the brush of his arm or leg when he moved. Just a night ago, Justice would not have had to ask any questions because he would have been there with Anders, seeing everything. Now he was… Wait.

“You were _asleep?”_

Justice moved restively behind him. “Yes.”

Anders forgot his overpowered wisp in his surprise. “You never slept when you were in me.”

“Nor when I was in Kristoff’s body,” Justice agreed. “But this is very different. Do you want to discuss this in the dark?”

“Actually, yes,” Anders said, surprising himself. “It’s easier, if you know what I mean.”

“You mean that it is easier if you do not see me speaking from Karl’s body,” Justice clarified, making Anders feel a bit of an ass when he heard it stated so baldly.

But still… “I keep waiting for it to be Karl,” he said. “So let’s talk like this. You slept?”

“You fell asleep,” Justice said, his voice just different enough from Karl’s usual speaking voice for Anders to hear Justice and not Karl. “And I followed your instruction to rest, but after a time it was easier to close my eyes, and then I presume I was asleep. I remember nothing until you cursed and I woke.”

“Did you dream?”

“No. I do not expect that I can, but neither did I expect that I—” His answer was cut off by the distinctive sound of a yawn before he continued, “—that I would sleep.”

“Sounds like you could use some more sleep,” Anders observed, smiling slightly in the dark. Yawning. Who would ever have imagined that _Justice_ could yawn?

“Later.”

Anders felt fingers fumble against him for a moment before Justice’s hand spread against the small of his back in a gesture he could only have learned from Karl. Or perhaps from Anders’ memories of Karl.

He stiffened. “What are you doing?”

“This is meant to be comforting,” Justice said, sounding faintly confused or perhaps defensive. “Am I doing it wrong?”

 _Meant to be comforting._ Anders felt the pain of their separation flare up at the reminder of how far apart they were now. He had been trying to ignore it, but that became suddenly almost impossible. He cast about for anything else to think of and found himself back at the moment when he had awoken.

“Justice?”

“Yes?”

Anders thought of waking with Justice’s arm over him, the warmth of him against his back. “When you fell asleep, what position were you in?”

Justice sounded more than faintly confused now. “I was lying on my back. Why?”

Anders shook his head in the dark before remembering how useless the gesture was. “It doesn’t matter. As for your question, no, you weren’t doing it wrong, you just surprised me.”

In response, Justice tightened his fingers against Anders’ back. Despite himself, Anders laughed softly. “Wouldn’t you know it, the first time I’m alone in the dark with a man since Amaranthine…”

Justice kept his hand where it was. “Yes?”

“Nothing,” Anders said ruefully. “Let me see if I can get that lantern lit without blinding either of us and then we can go back to sleep. It’s not like we’re going anywhere until Marethari comes for us anyway.”

He focused to summon the wisp again, concentrating as carefully as an apprentice to get just a tiny flicker of light instead of the indoor sun he had called up earlier. When the light woke into existence in his hand he sent it upward toward the ceiling to cast a faint glow over the room.

“Better,” he murmured to himself, deliberately not looking at Justice while he searched for the lantern, lowering its wick until it once again rested in the oil in the reservoir. Mindful of his problem with the wisp, he kept tight rein over the tiny bit of fire he summoned to light the wick, banishing the wisp once the lantern burned on its own.

“Your magic,” Justice said, making it clear he had watched Anders’ every move. “It is different now?”

“It’s probably just shock,” Anders muttered, moving back to his bedroll. “Once I’ve slept it off, I’ll be fine. And once you’ve had some rest, we’ll start on some lessons for you, too. I don’t ever want you zapping me like that again. Now lie down.”

He slid back under his blankets facing Justice. His hair stood up in all directions, his beard had not been trimmed in weeks, but Anders could not help the stirring of muddled affection he felt at the sight of him. “In the morning I’ll help you shave.”

“Shave?” Justice pulled the blankets up to his chin and rolled onto his side to face Anders. “Why? Karl has worn a beard his entire adult life.”

Anders reached out to brush his fingers over Justice’s beard. “You aren’t Karl.”

• • •

“Stop it,” Anders snapped, pushing Justice’s hand off his clean-shaven jaw where he was rubbing it for the hundredth time that day.

Justice dropped his hand. “It does not feel like the rest of my face.”

“How would you know? It’s only been your face for a few days.” Anders pulled Justice’s hood forward again to shadow his features. “And you keep pushing the hood back when you do it. We’re trying not to get you nabbed by templars before we even make it to the docks.”

Anders and Justice spent had two more days under Marethari’s auspices before Anders felt that Justice was ready for the trip back to Kirkwall. They departed early in the morning with Marethari’s blessing and _expectations_ on their shoulders.

Anders’ first destination, even before his clinic, was finding Mistress Selby. He had to know if there were any rumors of abominations in the Gallows. Other than Meredith’s usual suspicions about such things.

“Have you seen—” A templar reached to catch Anders’ arm. “We’re looking for an apostate.”

Beside him, Justice tensed.

“Haven’t seen one,” he said tersely.

“We haven’t described her yet,” the templar said, his partner blocking Anders’ way.

“Doesn’t matter,” Anders said, pulling his arm away from the templar’s grip. “Haven’t seen her, whatever she looks like. And since my friend and I aren’t women, we’ll be on our way.”

He grabbed Justice’s arm in a firm grip and pulled at him. “Let’s go. We can’t keep our friends waiting.”

The second templar did not stand aside. “What about your friend. Does he know anything about her? She’s just a knife-ear anyway.”

Anders felt Justice’s arm tremble with suppressed emotion before he ground out, “No—”

There was a rant right behind that _no,_ Anders just knew it. He cut it off before it could begin. “There you go. No apostates here and we really must be going, right Justi—Justin? That’s right. You two have the _best of luck_ with your happy apostate oppressing. Make sure to look both ways when crossing busy roads, you wouldn’t want to get _run down by a horse,_ and keep your toes dry, there’s a nasty, glowy _foot fungus_ going around.”

He kept up the babble as he pulled Justice away from the templars and down the narrow street toward Selby’s little corner of the docks.

“Right,” he hissed when they were out of earshot of the templars. “Good job at not going fiery wrath on them, I’ll grant you that, but we should probably think about how to manage any other templars we stumble over before we’re ready to make our move.”

“And what is our move?” Justice asked as he unlatched Anders’ hand from his bicep one finger at a time.

“I wish I knew,” Anders admitted. He ran his hands through his hair and straightened his ponytail before striding purposefully to find Selby.

She was at her board as she usually was during the day. Although why she called her little book of mage-friendly errands a board, Anders was never certain.

“Anders,” she held out her arms to him, which took him entirely by surprise.

“Selby,” he said uncertainly, hanging back from the proffered embrace. “Tell me you aren’t going to make a knife appear from one of your sleeves, because I’m pretty sure I haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

Selby dropped her arms. “You wound me.”

“Actually, I was trying to make sure you didn’t wound me,” Anders pointed out, finally stepping forward to offer a hug of his own. Why, he wasn’t sure, but maybe he was getting his mojo back – even if it was only with middle-aged women who were probably so tough they could break his balls with their thighs.

He had never noticed how small Selby was until he folded her in his arms. She had a big enough presence to compensate for barely making it up to his chest.

“Templars are still looking for Karl,” she murmured while they stood in an awkward embrace, Justice standing just as awkwardly at the periphery of their little reunion. “Thrask says his phylactery should be arriving from Val Royeaux any day now.”

Ah, now that made more sense. He kept his voice low. “What took so long? It’s been almost five weeks.”

“No one wanted to admit that they’d lost a mage and two templars right out of the heart of the Gallows.” Selby patted his back and smoothed his coat down, still not releasing him. “So they didn’t send for his phylactery for the better part of three weeks while templars scoured the city. Good job you got Karl out of Kirkwall and left yourself.”

“He should be safe from that now.” Anders couldn’t decide what to do with his hands, what with all her patting and smoothing. He knew where to put his hands on most women who were doing that to him, but he was rather certain that if he gave Mistress Selby a grope, he might come out of it missing a few of his favorite bits. He shot a look over at Justice and could just see a hint of disapproval on his face past the shadows of the hood.

Wait, the disapproving voice was no longer in his head!

He dropped a hand to Selby’s backside for a quick squeeze and grinned when she stiffened but did not pull away. “I made enough coin on Hawke’s mad expedition to buy the amulet from Xenon. They won’t be finding him that way, but there are other things we have to talk about somewhere more private.”

“I’m sure there are,” she said coolly. “Your clinic?”

“The Hanged Man if you can manage,” he said, releasing his half of the embrace. “Tonight when you’re done. And if there is any chance you can get Thrask there, it would save a lot of re-telling later.”

She let him go and finally stole a look at Justice, pausing and peering up under the hood to get a better look at him. Anders could see the moment when she connected the clean-shaven man with her memories of Karl and put a hand on her arm. “We’ll explain tonight. _Try_ to get a message to Thrask. I still need to get a few more people to join us.”

Maybe one of them would have a brilliant idea, since Anders was rather short of them.

• • •

 _Anders wishes for me to record Karl’s memories. He says that Karl Thekla was a good man who deserves to be remembered as more than a failed experiment. He says he will give these writings to the storyteller, Varric, to turn Karl’s life into stories that other people will tell until Karl is never forgotten._

 _I do not know what stories will stir mortals, nor am I a storyteller. Anders says leave that to Varric, just write._

 _When Karl was ten years old, he was attacked by wolves on his way home from fishing in a nearby river. He discovered his magic that day when his fear fueled the magic to stun the first wolf to attack him. He never forgot the feel of it bursting from his skin along with his terrified scream. It gave him enough respite to climb a tree, leaving his catch for the wolves to fight over until his calls were heard by woodcutters._

 _He hid his magic successfully for two more years, but that was the beginning of two years of fear for him, always certain that at any moment, templars would come to tear him away from everything he knew and loved. He was a child who lived in fear for an accident of birth._

 _Karl Thekla never used his magic to do harm. He did not deserve what was done to him._


	9. Chapter 9

“Blondie.” Varric set aside his book and pulled on his boots on before standing up. “We thought you’d decided to cut and run.”

Anders waited for Justice to follow him into the room before pushing Varric’s door closed. “I don’t know what gave you that impression. You don’t just abandon a group of crazy well-armed bastards willing to storm the Gallows with you.”

“I’ll give you crazy and well-armed,” Varric said easily while he scanned Justice from head to toe, tipping his head to try to get a peek inside the hood. “But my parents were married and you’ll do well to remember that.”

Anders nodded to Justice and motioned to him to push the hood back. “My word that I’ll never forget that your brother is only a spiritual bastard, and not a legal one.”

He watched Varric’s face closely when Justice pushed the hood off, revealing his newly naked countenance. It took a moment before he recognized Karl’s face without the beard, but Anders saw the sudden startled recognition dawn on his features.

“Ancestors,” Varric breathed. “That old elven Keeper fixed him up, did she? I have to say, Blondie, none of us were particularly optimistic. We just didn’t have the heart to say it.”

He thrust out a hand for Justice to shake. “Varric Tethras. You probably don’t remember the first time we met. You were kind of asleep at the time.”

Justice gave Varric’s hand a blank look before something, probably Karl’s memories, clicked into place. He took the proffered hand. “I remember you. I was not asleep at all.”

Anders coughed. “Right, let’s save that for later.”

Varric raised an eyebrow and carefully extricated his hand from Justice’s grip. “Do I smell another crazy scheme brewing, Blondie?”

“If you do, you’re well ahead of me,” Anders said dryly. “I’m hoping one of Hawke’s merry madmen might hear what I’ve learned and offer something. Speaking of which, he’s not in Lowtown anymore? That was fast.”

“You never saw the dump he was living in with his creep of an uncle,” Varric said, moving past them to open a cabinet, removing a bottle of wine and three glasses. “Leandra had already made her case to the viscount by the time we made it back. And just so you know, Carver went and joined up with the templar order, so don’t bring him up if you can help it.”

Anders hissed through his teeth. “That’s got to smart.”

“You know it,” Varric affirmed while he pried the cork out of the bottle. “And he timed it _just right_ so Hawke would catch him just on his way out.”

“What a little tit,” Anders said, pulling out one of Varric’s low chairs with a murmur to Justice to have a seat. For himself he settled on the table itself, stretching his long legs out on the floor. “And a hypocrite, too, for all the templars he helped kill.”

Varric shrugged and poured three glasses of wine, pushing two across the table to Anders and Justice. “No one knows what’s going on in Junior’s head except Junior. I’m obviously not the best judge of how a brother will act.”

That was a mouthful right there. “Any word on the spiritual-rather-than-legal bastard himself?”

“Here and gone like a thief in the night,” Varric said with a grimace. “If he so much as farts in Kirkwall’s general direction, someone will tell me, but until then, I’ll just have to wait and plot ever more elaborate revenge schemes.”

Anders raised his glass in a toast to that and noted with faint amusement that Justice regarded the gesture with puzzlement before raising his own glass. “If I’m here when he shows up like the proverbial bad copper, I’ll lend a hand. I owe him for the extra weeks in the Deep Roads. I _hate_ the Deep Roads.”

“We know, we know,” Varric said with exaggerated weariness, though he raised his glass and tipped it toward the others to acknowledge the toast. “You told us often enough.”

Anders leaned in to murmur in Justice’s ear, “Drink it. Karl always liked wine and a single glass won’t kill you. In fact, take it from your healer that it can be healthful.”

He waited until Justice took a cautious sip of wine before raising his own glass to his lips. The first taste was the best, untainted by the flavor of colored emotion – usually bilious green disapproval – for the first time since he and Justice had joined. The first sip was so good, he had a second, followed by a third and just one more long swallow because it made his stomach warm as well. A dozen or so more of those and maybe it could cover the ache he was trying so determinedly to ignore.

When he lowered his glass, Varric’s eyes were fixed on him, one eyebrow raised. “Want another?” He pushed the bottle across the table at Anders. “I figure I can stand you a bottle or three of wine for all the help you were on the expedition.”

He flicked a glance over to Justice, who was glowering at him and the bottle with equal disapproval.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said just to prove to himself that he could, although once he poured the second glass, he only spun the stem between his fingers.

“I have a friend or two coming by here later,” he said while Varric topped off his own glass. “I was hoping you could get Hawke to come by to hear what I’ve learned since we got back.”

“I’m throwing a party and I didn’t know it?” Varric shook his head. “I’m obviously slipping.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Anders promised. “Free healing and no questions asked salves for all those embarrassing little moments.”

“You’ve got the wrong guy for those,” Varric said, chuckling as he pushed himself out of his chair and headed for the door. “But I know who’d take you up on that. Let me go grab her for introductions, then I can probably convince her to go invite Hawke to the party.”

Once Varric left the room, Justice turned to him. “What are you playing at? You should not be dulling your senses at a time like this.”

“Now is exactly the time I should be dulling my senses,” Anders contradicted. “Justice…” He shook his head and reconsidered. The pleasant warmth of the wine was already loosening his tongue. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes to collect himself. “Justice, it’s anesthetic. Maybe you want to feel all this, but I don’t.”

To make his point, he raised the glass and nearly choked when he heard a velvety, _familiar_ woman’s voice. “Is that… It _is!_ From the Pearl!”

He lowered the glass and took in the gorgeous curves all on obvious display. Then he looked up at the familiar face that was the crowning glory on those curves. “Isabela.”

 _“Captain_ Isabela,” she corrected, sweeping into the room to drop herself into his lap. “When they said Anders had helped them on the expedition, I thought to myself, ‘Could it be?’ and said to myself, ‘Oh no, Isabela, they couldn’t have happened on the prettiest apostate this side of Denerim could they? Not and come out of weeks all alone in tight, dark, _tight_ spaces without some smashing stories.’ But here you are, just as pretty as you were back at the Pearl. Do you still do that delicious thing with the electricity?”

Anders raised his hands as all that lush, mostly bare pirate skin settled onto his lap and squirmed. He could see Justice’s glare just past one of her breasts before she turned against him and all he could see was cleavage – deep, perfect cleavage, frosted with freckles and bounded by breasts that he happened to know were just about the most perfect breasts the Maker had ever set loose on an unsuspecting Thedas.

“Isabela,” he said again, bringing up a knee to shield his groin from the kind of grinding he knew she was capable of. “Fancy seeing you here.” He sounded a bit weak, but even without Justice directly _in_ his head, his disapproval was still palpable.

“Varric thought you might do us a favor and go ask Hawke to come down from his Hightown aerie. I have some news to share with him.”

He put his hands on her hips to keep the grinding to a minimum, which Isabela took as a challenge to maximize it. “I’ll think about it,” she purred, draping her arms over his shoulders, “for a kiss.”

Anders craned his neck to see past Isabela’s breasts to give Justice a helpless look before shrugging up at her. “Just don’t ask for the electricity trick. Things are a bit hit or miss right now, and you don’t want it to be miss at the wrong moment.”

She laughed and clasped his face in her hands, holding him for a kiss that went past chaste into wicked faster than a farm girl at a midsummer bonfire. He dimly heard Varric chuckle past the roaring in his ears, while he flailed for purchase on something other than any of Isabela’s many charms, finding it in a firm hand that clasped his and squeezed.

When Isabela finally released him, he sucked in a breath, feeling his face heat with wine and no small amount of arousal.

“Okay,” he said weakly. “Payment made.”

Isabela gave a last roll of her hips before bouncing to her feet. She dropped her gaze to where Anders’ and Justice’s hands were still clasped and smirked. “Threesome already? You really haven’t changed, have you?”

 _“Isabela,”_ Anders said warningly.

“I’m going, I’m going.” She strolled to the door and gave the two men a last pointed look before laughing and pulling the door closed on her way out.

“I don’t need to ask if you’ve met our Rivaini,” Varric observed. Sometime during Isabela’s attack on him, Varric had found another bottle of wine and settled himself back in his chair. “Sometimes I wonder if I should be counting the men in Thedas she doesn’t know.”

“She does not know me,” Justice said, finally releasing Anders’ hand.

“That’s one then,” Varric said, writing a name on an imaginary list.

“Are you speaking carnally or just passingly?” Anders asked after he drained half his glass in one long swallow. “Because I know she can sway almost any man over to her side of the street, but not _all_ of them.”

Varric gave that easy chuckle that Anders liked so much about him and spread his hands. “I think it’s safe to say that the Rivaini will find a way to plunder almost anyone’s booty if she’s given half a chance.”

“Even yours?” Anders asked, cutting his eyes over to Bianca where she rested on her stand.

“My booty is already spoken for,” Varric replied, turning a fond eye to his crossbow. “But I allow her to admire my chest hair as much as she wants. There’s enough to go around.”

“There’s enough to carpet the Viscount’s Keep,” Anders said with a grin before he raised his glass. “To Varric. May his chest hair be ever-abundant.”

He nudged Justice with his elbow until Justice grudgingly raised his glass. He was going to get the spirit – man – whatever he was to loosen up tonight, no matter what. They both desperately needed it.

• • •

 _The first time that Karl Thekla felt jealousy, he was fourteen. After two years in the Circle, he met a boy his age who was just as anxious to prove himself and just as frustrated to be stuck behind the walls of Kinloch Hold. They were friends, but Karl developed feelings for the boy that confused him. They were feelings he was told were natural by some people, while others told him that the Maker would curse him for feeling lust for another boy. They told him that it was unnatural and wrong._

 _He hid his feelings because he was confused and ashamed. When he saw his friend growing close with a girl, his feelings turned to something that felt like a physical illness. They twisted his stomach, made his blood heat in his veins, made him feel cruel and spiteful toward someone he truly cared for._

 _He did not realize at first that what he felt was jealousy. He only knew that he hated it, and he hated his friend who had made him feel it. In later years, remembering his jealousy, he was ashamed that he let it make him cold toward someone he cared for._

 _With time, he decided that he was as the Maker had made him. If it was unnatural and wrong to be a mage, then it was no more unnatural and wrong to feel what he did for another boy. He still felt jealousy at times, but he never again let him burn him or make him cruel the way it did the first time._

 _Mortals are not born wise, but they have the potential to rise to wisdom. Karl Thekla spent his life rising._


	10. Chapter 10

The waiting was torture. Varric was a good host, but there was little he could do when neither of his guests wanted to talk. Or rather, Anders wanted to talk, but he wanted to wait until everyone was assembled in order to get the awkward revelation out of the way in one fell swoop instead of repeating again and again, _Yes, I was an abomination, and Karl was a soulless husk, but we both got better. Sort of._

Explaining that was something he truly wanted to only do once.

Selby arrived first, bringing a young man in templar armor who Anders did not recognize. He pulled her aside, leaving the templar standing uncomfortably by the bar.

“Who is he?” he hissed, shooting a suspicious look at the man, although man was almost too generous a descriptor. Was the blond even old enough to shave?

“His name is Keran,” Selby said, extricating her arm from Anders’ grip with a look that said he was beyond pushing his luck with her. “And Thrask sent him. You can trust him.”

“I barely trust people I _know_ with this,” Anders said urgently, thinking of Justice who was alone with Varric. Who knew how much the dwarf was pumping him for information right that moment?

“Thrask sent him,” Selby repeated. “Keran is his eyes and ears tonight because he can’t get away without raising questions.”

“So you’re vouching for him?”

Selby shrugged, following Anders’ gaze to Keran, who raised a hand in a diffident greeting. “I’m vouching for Thrask and if he says Keran is his man, Keran is his man.”

Anders ran his hands through his hair, loosening his hair tie before he pulled it out entirely and re-tied his hair. “Fine, but if this all ends in screaming because of him—”

“It won’t.” Selby folded her arms and tipped her head up to examine Anders more closely. “You’re not looking like yourself. Does it have anything to do with Karl?”

“Anders!”

Anders was saved from answering her by Hawke’s ebullient greeting.

Anders hastily pointed Selby toward Varric’s suite. “Up the stairs and straight ahead. You’ll see Karl in there, but do me a favor and leave him be until I get up there. He’s been through a lot.” To say the least.

Selby motioned Keran to follow her and led him up the stairs while Hawke threaded his way through the tavern patrons to pull Anders into a cheerful hug.

“Good to see you. Isabela says you brought a friend back from Sundermount.”

Anders tried to appreciate Hawke’s attempt at circumspection. At least he didn’t come straight out and say Karl’s name.

“And I hear you’ve moved up in the world. Only a year or two in Kirkwall to make it from indentured refugee to Hightown nob.”

Hawke grinned and thumped his shoulder. “You know what they say, fortune favors the bold.”

That, in Anders’ experience, was bullshit, at least in the long term, but he shrugged and said, “Congratulations. Now let’s get up there and drink more of Varric’s wine while I tell you all a story.”

“Does it have booty?” Isabela asked, slipping around Hawke to slide her arm around Anders’ waist. “Either kind?”

“Probably not,” Anders admitted.

“We should fix that,” Isabela said, tugging him toward the stairs without releasing her hold on his waist. She grinned over her shoulder at Hawke. “Shouldn’t we fix that?”

Hawke raised his hands in mock-surrender and followed after them. “Anything you say, Isabela.”

She laughed and bumped her hip against Anders’. “What do you think, do I have him trained already or what?”

Anders grinned back at her and let his hand fall to her hip. It was not the easy flirting he had once been able to summon without thinking twice, but some ingrained habits came back quickly. Most people would not notice that he could not put his heart into it the way he used to.

Particularly when they crossed the threshold into Varric’s suite and Anders felt Justice’s eyes on him.

“There we go,” he pronounced, smacking Isabela’s hip before extricating himself from her hold. “I got you here without getting lost. Now go sit in Varric’s lap and fondle Bianca or something.”

“Oh no she doesn’t,” Varric said. “No one fondles Bianca but me, and only in private.”

Hawke dropped into one of Varric’s low chairs and patted his lap invitingly. “I will console you after Anders’ rejection.”

While Isabela went to use Hawke as her own personal seat cushion, Anders closed Varric’s door and shot the bolt.

Well, that was the easy part. He turned to face the room, his gaze sliding from one familiar face to another. He had only known these people for a few months in some cases to a few weeks in others – to not at all in Keran’s case – but he had to trust them with a volatile secret.

Better to just get it over with.

“Right. So…” He rubbed his hands down the front of his coat and locked eyes with Justice. “Let’s just get to the heart of the matter. The Chantry’s experimenting on mages to try to find an alternative to Tranquility.”

He wasn’t sure what he expected, but somehow he had thought that there would be an outcry just at that pronouncement. Instead everyone just kept looking at him expectantly.

“That’s what they did to Karl.”

Now all eyes turned to Justice. No, that was not working right, either.

“You’re all thinking that’s not so bad, right? Here’s Karl up and about and he doesn’t have a brand on his forehead and he doesn’t look as empty as a Tranquil, right?”

There were nods around the table.

He shook his head. “What they’re doing doesn’t work that way. They killed Karl.”

All eyes went from him to Justice and back to him again.

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” Varric said, speaking for most of the table. “He’s looking pretty lively for a dead man.”

“He’s got you there,” Hawke agreed.

Anders held Justice’s eyes before nodding. Time to drop the other shoe. “When I was serving as a Grey Warden at Vigil’s Keep, I met a spirit of Justice forced from the Fade by evil magic. He was forced into the host body of a dead Grey Warden. He and I served together with the Warden Commander – the Hero of Fereldan – and together he and I fought fouler things than you can imagine. When his host body’s death had been avenged, he and I had gotten to know each other well. I offered him a willing, living host.”

He could see Varric weaving together the threads of the story ahead of him now, but the others were still rapt but confused.

“For all the time you people have known me, I have been the host to the spirit of Justice.” He swallowed and gestured for Justice to join him. If these people reacted more poorly than he expected, he wanted to be near the door.

Justice came to stand by his side and together they looked from one face to the next. Varric was rapt, caught up in the story. Hawke shifted his attention between Anders and Justice, his expression speculative. Selby looked troubled, but also as though she was ready to wait for whatever came next. Keran had the wide-eyed look of someone realizing he was in far over his head. Only Isabela’s expression was unreadable where she lounged across Hawke’s lap, idly toying with his hair.

“The Chantry has permission – no _instruction_ from the Divine to find this alternative to Tranquility no matter what it takes. As a mage I can tell you that there is no way to separate what we are from what we feel.” He saw Hawke nod in agreement. “But they are going to keep trying, and every time they do, if they don’t kill the mage, they are going to do what they did to Karl. When we rescued him from the Gallows, his spirit was already gone.”

He saw Varric and Hawke make the connection first, then Selby. Isabela remained a cipher, but Anders would wager she understood what he was and was not saying. At last only Keran remained unenlightened.

“Karl is gone.” Anders repeated, feeling a weight of sorrow in that pronouncement that he knew bled into his words and onto his face. “With the Dalish Keeper’s help, Justice has left me as a host and is here.” He put a hand on Justice’s arm. “This is how we know what the Chantry is doing and how we know that they won’t stop until they succeed – which is impossible – or until they have used every mage in Thedas to try to succeed.”

He wished he had a pin to drop into the silence that followed his words.

Justice stepped in. “I have seen Karl’s memories of what was done to him. You,” he nodded to Hawke, “have seen the other mages that were used and left empty. It is wrong. It is _unjust._ If you have a conscience, you must stand up and help us stop this.”

“And if you want to forget seeing mages treated like people and not things, think about the fact that right now they are leaving empty bodies in the Gallows that might end up hosting something less wholesome than a spirit of Justice,” Anders added.

Here, finally, Keran reacted with something other than mute confusion. They all heard his gasp and murmur, “That’s why…”

“That’s why what?” Hawke asked before Anders could ask the same question.

“That’s why there have been demon attacks in the Gallows in the last few weeks,” Keran said. “The Knight-Commander has been using them as a reason to lock things down with the mages. They are barely allowed to leave their cells to eat, library privileges are suspended, mages are not allowed to gather except for templar-supervised training and to attend Chantry services.”

He was so earnest and so _young,_ Anders thought.

“Most of the templars who might have been on the mages’ side have come together to support her,” he went on. “Everyone says she must be right about the threat, and no one wants to end up like Ferelden’s Circle. The Knight-Captain tells stories that make my skin crawl.”

“Why are you here?” Hawke asked. “If there was a templar who was going to be against mages, I would have thought it would be you after what you went through.”

Anders’ eyebrows went up in surprise. He had not known that Hawke knew Keran at all, let alone that there was some history between the two of them.

“You’re why,” Keran said simply. “If all mages were evil, I wouldn’t be here, I’d be some blood mage’s thrall.” He shrugged. “You saved me, you saved my place in the order, and you saved my family. A mage did that, not a templar.”

He turned his attention away from Hawke to Justice. “What do you want us to do?”

“Kill them all,” Justice said decisively. “They must never do this to another mage.”

“Whoa, whoa! Hold on there,” Varric cut in. “That’s a whole lot of templars you want us to just slaughter. Not that I’m opposed to bloodshed, but usually I want to see a percentage in it, and all I’m seeing is an Exalted March headed our way if we do that.”

Hawke nodded and said, “Not to mention that—”

Varric’s door rattled followed by the heavy thump of a fist. “I know you’re in there. Open up!”

“Aveline,” Varric said, recognizing the voice. “Let her in, Blondie. She should hear this.”

Anders unbolted the door and admitted the Aveline. She came wearing the new mantle of Guard Captain and pushed past him without a word before stopping to silently take in the unlikely assembly.

“Right,” she said once she had taken everyone’s measure. “Who’s going to tell me what’s going on here?”

• • •

“Go public.”

Aveline had listened to a quick recounting of what Anders and Justice had just told the group and made her pronouncement as though it were the most obvious option.

“Go public?” Justice asked. “I do not understand.”

“You can’t just kill every templar and Chantry sister and brother,” Aveline said, folding her arms. “And these kinds of things thrive in secrecy. Conspiracies fall apart when they’re put out for everyone to see. Get evidence, get it to the right people, and make sure all of Kirkwall, no make sure all of Thedas knows what the Chantry’s up to.”

Isabela threw her head back and laughed. “Big girl, that is brilliant. I knew we kept you around for more than just your big manly hands.”

“No one asked you, slattern,” Aveline snapped.

“No, she’s right,” Selby said, speaking up for the first time. “They’re both right. This is brilliant. If we expose the Chantry’s hypocrisy, we could turn the tide of sentiment against them for the first time in centuries. People might be afraid of mages, but there are plenty of people with sisters or brothers, sons or daughters in the Circles. And if this really does go all the way up to the Divine…”

She shook her head in something like awe. “This could change everything.”

• • •

 _The first time that Karl Thekla saw Anders, he was a frightened twelve-year old boy newly brought to Kinloch Hold. Anders was skinny and lanky, just starting the first real growth of adolescence, making him seem to be all arms and legs. He had a thick Anderfels accent and an unpronounceable name to most Fereldans. Karl noticed him, but did not mark him._

 _The first time that Karl met Anders, was years later when they shared lessons under a senior enchanter. Karl was much older than Anders, but Anders’ magical talent put him ahead of his peers and into the company of more senior mages. Anders still remembers their meeting. I could see his memories when he would think of Karl. He thought that at first Karl looked down on him for his youth and his inexperience._

 _Now I see the other side of it. Karl was fascinated by him. Even though he was easily a decade older than Anders, they stood side-by-side in terms of magical power. Karl did not look down on him – he was unwilling to show his fascination because he thought that Anders would want someone younger, but from the first time he stood shoulder to shoulder with Anders in a summoning circle, he had wanted to touch him._


	11. Chapter 11

The tavern outside Varric’s closed and locked door was just moving into a full late-night carouse by the time Keran left with instructions to escort Selby safely home and to take everything he had heard to Thrask. Anders could feel the shift in the room when the door closed behind the templar. Varric shot the bolt and without a word, moved to unlock a small chest. He withdrew two bottles, one a rich cobalt blue, the other clear, filled with a golden liquid, tucking both bottles into his coat pockets, he went back into the chest for three tiny glasses, smaller even than shot glasses.

“Okay,” he said, returning to the table to set a tiny glass in front of Anders, Justice, and Hawke before taking the bottles out of his pocket. “The blue one is for you three. The rest of us will just get by with some of Mackay’s best single malt.”

Isabela squealed and made grabby hands at Varric. “Mackay’s best? Tell me it’s true, tell me it’s really older than the Maker and smoother than an elven baby’s butt.”

Varric popped the cork out of the bottle of golden whiskey and gestured for her glass. “You tell me. I bought the Aqua Magus as an investment and the Mackay’s to celebrate getting out of the Deep Roads alive, but this seems like a situation where no one should stay too sober. Am I right?”

Anders reached for the blue bottle of Aqua Magus. “Too right.”

Hawke snatched it up first, tilting the bottle in front of a candle to see the thick liquid roll back and forth inside the dark glass. “What’s Aqua Magus? And why did you give us such tiny glasses?”

“Wizard water,” Anders said, trying to take the bottle from Hawke, but Hawke moved it out of his reach. “I’ve seen it once before, in Amaranthine. It has a bit of lyrium mixed with the spirits. It knocked the hardest drinker I ever knew on his arse, so you can bet that we want the tiny glasses.”

Varric poured measures of Mackay’s for himself, Isabela, and even for Aveline, who sat perched at the end of the table still in her heavy armor. “Aqua magus for the two mages and the….” It was almost funny watching Varric find himself at a loss for how to describe Justice.

“Justice,” Anders supplied. “And I guess he’s a mage too.”

He resolutely would not think of arcane horrors or the fact that they rose from demons possessing the bodies of dead mages. They were proof enough that some aspect of being a mage was physical, not just spiritual. Justice was not a demon, Karl’s body was not dead, and what he had become was not an arcane horror.

But just brushing the thought was enough to make him want a drink even more.

“He doesn’t talk much,” Hawke noted. He pried the stone seal out of the bottle and sniffed, pulling his head back so quickly he knocked it against the high chair back. “Maker, Varric, I thought you liked me.”

“If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t have given you a bottle of the hardest to find liquor in Thedas,” Varric countered. “Now pour some for the spell slingers over there and raise your glass.”

Hawke poured out a few drops of the Aqua Magus before stopping to raise his glass to examine it without the dark glass in the way. The pale blue fluid clung to the sides of the glass, catching the light in such a way that it appeared to glow on its own.

“Nothing like life on the edge, eh?” Anders said, looking from the luminous liquor to Justice. Justice was staring, rapt, at the Aqua Magus. “Pass the bottle or do the pouring, will you?”

He leaned closer to murmur to Justice, “Are you okay?”

Justice tore his eyes away from the drink and nodded. “I was… there were memories.”

“Of Aqua Magus?” Anders asked. “You mean from Amaranthine? I didn’t know you were there when Oghren drank a whole bottle in one go.”

“No.” Justice’s brow furrowed with the memory of someone else’s anger. “Of Karl’s Harrowing. The lyrium they used to send him into the Fade looked like that, but _more.”_

“A toast,” Varric said, raising his glass and cutting off Anders’ response to Justice’s observation, apt thought it was. “To madmen and women. May we live longer than we deserve to.”

• • •

“Tell me again how Justice ended up on this side of the Veil,” Hawke said, pouring another thimbleful of Aqua Magus for Anders and Justice while Aveline and Varric tried to convince Isabela that wearing pants in the winter would not make her any less of a free woman. The discussion appeared heated, but Anders had not had enough to drink to miss the fact that all three of them were still listening to his talk with Hawke.

“I already told you three times,” he said, eying the glass cautiously. One more of those and he might just cross the line from pleasantly buzzed to just drunk. On the other hand, he had to admit that the bit of lyrium added an almost irresistible kick, thrilling through his limbs with a jolt of raw magic that had nothing to do with Justice’s love of lyrium. “The story isn’t going to change because you—” Speaking of Justice, he swiveled his head back to look at Justice, who had taken the refill from Hawke without arguing that he should not be dulling his senses. “—ask it a fourth.”

Anders let the others fade to background noise while he observed Justice. He had his tiny glass of Aqua Magus held up to his nose, his eyes heavy-lidded in something close to bliss. While Anders watched, he drew in a deep breath and held it until Anders’ lungs burned in sympathy, then let it out in a long sigh. When he darted his tongue out to lick a droplet off the rim of the glass, Anders’ face heated with something other than the drink.

He felt a twinge of jealousy. Why had he never had a blissful Justice when they shared a body? And now there he was in Karl’s body, looking like he had shed years along with his beard, practically having sex with a glass of liquor.

“Anders… _Anders.”_ Hawke shook his arm until Anders turned back to him. “Is there anything else you aren’t telling us about yourself and your friend there?”

Isabela giggled and said something that Aveline cut off with a curt, “Not now.”

“He likes lyrium,” Anders said, trying to keep from turning back to watch Justice with his glass again. “And he’s never been in solo control of a living body before. First it was Kristoff’s body without all the complicated living bits. Then he was with me, and I took care of all those things. Now he has—” _Karl’s body._ “—a living body and he has to learn most of the things we’re just used to.”

“Your friend’s body,” Hawke noted, pushing his untouched glass around, tracing invisible paths on the table’s surface. “The friend we got out of the Gallows for you. It’s not a problem that he’s possessing your friend’s body?”

Anders groaned and sank his head to the table, pillowed on an arm. His voice was loud in his ears, echoed back from the tabletop and magnified in the circle of his arms. “I have so many problems with everything that’s happened I don’t even know where to start.” He lifted his head and shoved back from the table, downing his drink and snagging Hawke’s to drain as well.

Everyone was looking at him. Aveline, Isabela, and Varric had given up on their pretext of a conversation, Hawke was watching him speculatively, and Justice had set his glass aside to give Anders his full attention.

“Stop it.” He pushed himself out of his chair and swayed on his feet. How many of those drinks had he had? He could not remember, but he was sure it was more than Hawke. “All of you stop looking at me like I have the answers. All I ever wanted was to live like any other man. With the occasional lightning bolt. I’ve done the best I could for my friends and it hasn’t been enough.”

He snatched up the cobalt bottle from the table and grabbed his staff with his other hand. “Come see me in the morning.”

Justice tried to rise to follow him, but overbalanced and fell back in the chair.

“How many glasses did you give him, Hawke?” Anders asked, raising the bottle to try to see the level of the liquid remaining. “He’s never been drunk.”

Hawke shrugged. “I don’t know. I just refilled every time he emptied the glass.”

“Shit.”

“No offense, guys, but I don’t really want a drunk… Justice in my suite all night,” Varric said. “A man’s got to sleep.”

“Anders is too drunk to get him back to Darktown safely,” Hawke said. “Can’t they just—”

“I’m not that drunk,” Anders said belligerently, ignoring the fact that he was mostly steady on his feet only because he was leaning on his staff.

Hawke kicked the bottom of his staff and caught the bottle of Aqua Magus when Anders flailed to keep from falling. “You _are_ that drunk. Aveline?” He turned to catch his friend’s stern headshake.

“Oh no, I’m not playing escort for a couple of drunks,” she said firmly. “Get them a room, let them sleep it off. The hangover and what passes for breakfast here will teach them not to let you pour the drinks.”

“They can sleep in my room,” Isabela offered.

“You aren’t getting a threesome out of this,” Anders said wearily. While Isabela’s charms were certainly world-class, he thought she should never be allowed near virgins lest they be spoiled for the rest of the world thereafter.

“Oh,” Isabela knocked back her whiskey and put her feet up on the table, showing a long line of leg that went so far up she ran out of leg. “Then get your own room.”

“I’ll do it,” Hawke said, standing up. “Since everyone’s blaming me for their choice to drink so much.”

“I was not blaming you,” Justice said. “It was my weakness.”

Hawke clapped him on the shoulder after he squeezed past Anders on his way to the door. “Don’t ruin my long-suffering act with reason, Justice. You’ll give the others bad ideas.”

• • •

“Right, lean there for a minute and then we can go to bed,” Anders instructed Justice after he had closed and bolted the door to the room Hawke had obtained for them.

“The room is spinning,” Justice informed him, leaning where Anders had indicated.

“You’re drunk,” Anders said, moving to stand atop the mattress. The way the world fuzzed around the edges and adjusted its definition of flat from moment to moment reminded him that he was also drunk.

“I know that I am drunk,” Justice said with bleary dignity. “I was informing you that the room is spinning.”

“One spell,” Anders said. “One spell and then we’ll be fine.” The Hanged Man’s rooms were not teeming with pests, but neither was Anders interested in waking up with any uninvited friends in bed with him.

Just a simple burst of mental force. Every mage learned it, even the ones with no skill at force magic. Anders meant to just use enough force to kill any lurking fleas or bedbugs.

Anders was too drunk to remember the lesson of the spell wisp.

The force burst from him in a soundless wave, sweeping out through the room, killing every flea, every bedbug, every lurking mouse, even the huge rat hiding in the ceiling rafters.

It also knocked Justice back against the door before he slid motionless to the floor.

“Shit!”

Anders stumbled over his own feet in his haste to jump down off the bed. He landed in a graceless heap of elbows and knees before scrabbling across the floor to Justice’s side. “Shit, shit, shit!”

He checked Justice’ breathing first, cursing continuously under his breath. Some rational part of his brain reminded him that people were not killed by this spell, only occasionally rendered unconscious, but that did nothing to help him calm himself.

“Shit. You don’t get to die on me now. Do you know what I went through for that body? Of course you know, but you don’t get to die in it tonight.” He felt the anxiety winding more and more tightly in his chest. “Wake up, you bastard, so I can put you to bed. I’ll even kiss you goodnight if you want, but you have to wake up.”

Justice opened his eyes and Anders’ anxiety unspooled so quickly that it left him giddier than the Aqua Magus.

The taste of Justice’s lips left him giddier when he impulsively bent down and kissed him.

• • •

  
~~  
_I have searched for a memory of the first time that Anders had sex with Karl Thekla, but I do not understand the malleable line that mortals have to define sex. It was not the first time that they kissed in an empty alchemy laboratory moments after their instructor had left. Was it the first time that Anders trembled in Karl’s arms, brought to orgasm by the rub of their bodies through their robes? I understand that sex does not have to be mutually pleasurable to be considered “sex” but they were both fully clothed. Was that just an extension of their kissing? I believe it may have been the first time that Anders raised Karl’s robes and_   
~~   
__

_Anders has explained that not all details of Karl Thekla’s life need to be shared for him to be remembered._

 _I now have memories of two mages’ Harrowings and Anders tells me that there is no need to shroud the foul ritual in secrecy any longer. It is a cruel lie that the Harrowing is for the safety of all. It is entrapment. How does any mage lives to maturity when the entire ritual forces a mage to single-handedly defeat a demon when they are only just coming into the fullness of their power? The ritual requires a summoned demon! It is summoned to the young mage’s location in the Fade by the senior mages who conduct the ritual. They promise the demon a living host._

 _Senior mages summon demons and templars oversee the workings. Is this not hypocrisy?_

 _Karl faced a demon of rage. They are common creatures in the Fade and so easily fed by mortals. It promised him power, it promised him freedom. It promised him that he would never be alone. He fought it successfully, but years later when Anders was released from a year of solitary confinement a changed man, Karl wondered if all men were susceptible if the right demon made the right promise to the right man._


	12. Chapter 12

The first frantic moment of Anders’ lips against Justice’s drove the air out of his lungs. He knew that he was a man who could make plans, but once he gave himself over to impulse, he was lost.

With the Aqua Magus blurring the world and his thoughts along the edges, at first there was just sensation – Karl’s – no, Justice’s lips, the surprised sound Justice made before he moved just enough to raise his head to press _his_ tongue between _Anders’_ lips, smooth skin of Justice’s cheek under his hand – Karl had never gone clean-shaven – to remind him who he was with.

He did not want to be the one to show self-control.

But Anders drew back with a last, light kiss and dropped his forehead to Justice’s chest. “Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry. I—Let’s just get you up off the floor and into bed.”

He forced himself into a sudden burst of motion, ignoring the world’s attempt to turn upside down on him. He’d been drunk often enough to be onto the ground’s wily ways and wasn’t about to be sent ass over teakettle before he got himself and Justice to bed.

“Anders—”

Anders grunted to stop Justice from saying whatever it was he meant to say and grabbed for his hand. “Up you go. Come on. It’s just three steps from here to there.”

Here being where they had been lying together on the floor kissing. There being the bed where they could lie together…

Anders swallowed hard before turning his mind to the task at hand. He pulled while Justice made a graceless effort to scramble up off the floor that ended with Anders catching him under the arms to half-walk, half-drag him the few feet to the bed.

“Why do people enjoy this?” Justice asked as Anders lowered him to the mattress and knelt at his feet to remove his boots. “If I close my eyes, the world spins and I feel ill.”

Anders pulled the chamber pot from under the bed and handed it to Justice. “Vomit goes in there. Not on my head, not on the bed.” He snickered to himself at the inadvertent rhyme while he fumbled with Justice’s boot buckles. “And usually I like to stop before the spinny part. I’ll teach you sometime.”

He kept his eyes down and blinked to force them to focus on the complicated contraption known as a buckle. “We’ll sit down and have a nice dinner, drink some wine, talk about….”

He trailed off, giving up on this portrait of the two of them acting like some kind of normal couple together.

That was never going to happen. Nothing about them or their circumstances was normal, and they would never have normal lives, together or apart.

He jerked Justice’s boot off and flung it aside before he grabbed the other boot and tugged at its buckle with increasingly sharper, angrier movements.

“All I want,” he muttered to himself while he practically tore Justice’s boot off and threw it to hit the wall with a hard thump, “is…”

 _Is what?_

Justice’s fingers in his hair drew him out of his sudden fit of anger. The touch came gently, smoothing back stray strands before he used his fingertips under Anders’ jaw to turn his face up. His expression was filled with a kind of understanding that no one else had ever been able to show Anders. No one else had ever known him from the inside out. “All you want is what no one ever let you have.”

The anger flowed out of him on a tide of tears. He pulled away to press his cheek to Justice’s knee.

“I miss you,” he admitted.

“I know.”

“You scared me.”

“I know.”

“If we had stayed joined, I would have changed. You would have changed. What if we…?” _What if we became a demon together?_

Anders pressed his face harder against Justice’s knee and wrapped his arms around his calf to cling to him. “I miss Karl,” he whispered.

Justice laid his hand on Anders’ head. “I know.”

He took comfort in the touch and the closeness until a detached part of his mind painted a picture for him – the picture showed Anders on his ass on the floor in the Hanged Man clinging to Justice’s leg like a three year-old clinging to his Mummy.

It was not an attractive portrait.

“Right.” He released Justice’s leg and scooted back. “I’ll just get my boots off. Hope you don’t mind sharing the bed, because I’m not sleeping on the floor.”

“Anders.” Justice’s chiding tone made him look up. “I have no first-hand experience, but neither your memories nor Karl’s indicate that this is how we have sex.”

Anders froze.

He searched his memory for any indication that Aqua Magus acted as an hallucinogen.

“We are alone together in an inn room,” Justice explained reasonably. “We are intoxicated, we have been kissing and touching, we have established physical attraction. Your experience and Karl’s tells me that sex is a logical progression.”

He moved the chamber pot to bend forward until his face was nearly level with Anders’. “You are not alone in feeling empty.”

The words struck Anders in the chest where the Justice-shaped hole in his soul seemed to have lodged.

“I’ve been so—” _Selfish._

“Anders.”

Anders went silent.

“Take off your clothes.”

The tone of voice, the glint in his eye, the tilt of his head… beardless or not, Anders nearly sobbed under the weight of memories of Karl.

To kill the resemblance, Justice stood up, swaying, gracelessly working his robe up over his head. Karl would have made it something to get Anders hard just watching.

“I remember that birthmark,” Anders murmured, reaching out to touch a brown blotch the size and shape of a thumbprint on Justice’s leg above his right knee. He put his thumb over it and half-smiled. “Still fits.”

“You used to make up stories about it,” Justice said, working himself free of the robe over his head. He looked at it in puzzlement for a moment before tossing it onto a straight-backed chair. “So many stories.”

He was standing there in nothing more than his smallclothes discussing Karl’s birthmark. Anders wondered once again if Aqua Magus caused hallucinations.

“You are still dressed,” Justice observed before sucking in a surprised breath when Anders rose to his knees and hooked his fingers in the waistband of Justice’s smalls.

He pulled the last bit of cloth down off of Justice’s hips and down his thighs.

Nothing about the outside was new. Anders knew every inch of Karl’s body. He had traced its entire surface with his fingers, his lips, and even with his magic, but this was still new. Looking up into Justice’s eyes, he saw the flare of Fade blue when he drew fingertips up the inside of Justice’s thigh to brush the base of his scrotum.

The way the skin tightened and pulled toward his body was always a little wonder to Anders, like some proof that the small head really did have a mind of its own, governing a small territory, but an important one nonetheless.

“The City-State of Penis,” he murmured to himself before leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to Justice’s slowly-hardening shaft. “Ruled by a single-minded, cyclopean despot.” He kissed again and left his lips against Justice’s cock for long enough to feel it pulse with a surge of blood that left it fuller and harder. “A seat of sedition in the greater kingdom of Justice.”

Justice swayed a final time before falling back on the bed, sending the whole thing sliding back against the wall.

What would the neighbors think?

“Anders.” Justice sprawled on the bed, one hand going to the swell of his cock for an experimental stroke. “Enough.”

Maker, yes, it was enough. It was all Anders’ fractured heart could take to see such a familiar, fond sight in such an unfamiliar, disconcerting context. He knew the body, he knew the soul, but the body and soul together?

They were in uncharted territory.

 _I’m staring._

He was. He was staring at the mixture of familiar and unfamiliar, at Karl’s body being touched by Justice’s hand.

 _I’m staring._

Justice knew how to wear the body and even Karl’s mannerisms crept into Justice’s body language, but to Anders’ avid eyes, it seemed that Justice still stroked himself as though he had no idea what to expect from the stimulation.

 _I’m staring._

The first glisten of pre-cum in the slit of Justice’s cock beckoned. He knew precisely how it would taste – a little salty, textured like water-thinned honey….

“I’m staring.” He startled himself with the words before he shoved himself to his feet and threw his robe off. His plan to shed his smalls just as quickly was thwarted by his boots.

 _I thought I took those off._

Apparently not. He fumbled with the – _Maker, why are there so many buckles?_ – buckles of his boots until he could kick them off and follow them with his flung underwear.

All the while, Justice explored himself with his hands and watched Anders unrelentingly.

Anders considered that he deserved a reward for finally getting the blasted boots off without screaming his frustration for the entire Hanged Man to hear.

He had been smoother at this when he had been a stripling. How ridiculous had his life become?

 _Don’t answer that._

Anders climbed onto the bed, finding enough space between Justice and the wall to lie on his side with the front of his body pressed against the long length of Karl’s side.

“It’s your first time…” Oh, Andraste’s ass, it really was Justice’s first time wasn’t it? It was all well and good to have Karl’s memories of sex, and Anders’ memories, and even Kristoff’s, but to have a fully functional body that was really his?

 _Shit, no pressure or anything._

“What do you want to try?”

Justice closed his eyes and it was all Anders could do not to imagine him thumbing through three different men’s memories of sex acts, choosing exactly which one would suit him for his first time as an autonomous being in a living body.

“I want…” Justice stopped.

 _Are you saying that you could become a demon, Justice?_

 _I said no such thing._

 _You said that demons were spirits perverted by their desires._

 _I have no such desires._

 _You must have some desires..._

 _I have none! Desist your questions!_

Anders felt the memories like a punch in the gut.

“We can stop.” Offering it hurt, but Anders could not bring himself to take Justice down this road. He l— cared— _loved_ him too much. “Or just... pass out. No damage done.”

For a moment, he thought Justice would take him up on the offer.

That moment ended when Justice rolled over, sliding on top of Anders to pin him to the bed under the weight of his body.

“I want to be in you again.” And Anders could not mistake him for Karl with the blue light of the Fade shining out of the man’s eyes as he bent to kiss him.

Maybe it was cheating that Justice came to his first time informed by multiple memories of sex, but Anders could not bring himself to complain.

Maybe it wasn’t fair to either of them that they were too drunk for more foreplay than getting undressed, but neither of them complained.

A bigger complication rose when Justice settled between Anders’ legs only to realize that they had no lubrication anywhere within easy – or even difficult – reach.

“I know a spell,” Anders offered. “But the way things are going I’d cover the whole room in grease.” He snickered drunkenly. “Then we could just roll over and over and over until you could fuck a knothole without splinters.”

Justice’s lips pulled down before he appeared to conclude that Anders was joking. “Karl taught you the spell,” he mused. “I understand how it is done.”

Before Anders could protest that the room full of grease scenario was still probable, Justice brought his hand up between their bodies for both to watch as a faint violet glow coalesced around his fingers before dissipating, leaving them glistening and slick.

“At least you didn’t, _ah!”_ Anders arched up at the touch of Justice’s fingers between his legs, “Zap me.”

He spread his thighs wider and let his head fall back. He knew how to relax into the penetration and Justice knew his limits intimately, slipping two fingers up into his body before Anders had time to even manage a proper blasphemy.

 _I want to be in you again._

He promised himself that if they ever had sex again he would make the next time something more fitting. This time, however…

He lifted his hips away from Justice’s fingers, sliding free with a grunt and hiss. “Now.”

Justice’s brow furrowed in confusion, thrilling Anders with a strange, incongruous sense of triumph. _You don’t know everything I’ll ever do. Take that!_

“But…”

“I don’t care,” Anders ground out, bringing his knees up to expose himself more fully. “I said _now.”_

For all of Justice’s frowns and half-voiced protests, when Anders gripped his cock in one hand and his hip in the other to pull their bodies together, Justice followed his lead.

Anders knew this body. He knew that Justice’s cock thickened considerably just past the head and bent a little to the left. He had enjoyed gently teasing Karl about his crooked cock, often between bouts of sucking it until Karl writhed off the bed entirely.

He knew to relax and trust that the burn would indeed relent, but more than anything he knew and craved that moment when his body gave up its resistance and changed tactics, almost seeming to pull Justice in more deeply.

“Who am I?”

He shifted his hips and ground down to take Karl’s cock even farther.

“Who am I?”

Behind his closed eyes he saw stars when Justice snapped his hips, bringing their bodies together with a flaring burn and a slap of flesh on flesh.

 _“Who am I?”_

Karl—no, Justice, no, Karl.

No.

Anders opened his eyes and nearly fell into the Fade in Justice’s eyes.

“Who am I?” Justice repeated a final time, holding himself completely still over Anders.

“Justice,” Anders sighed, brushing his hand over Justice’s bare cheek. “You’re Justice.”

Justice began to move and Anders forgot everything. The act couldn’t fill the hole in his soul, but it was as close as he was going to get this side of death.

• • •

Pleasantly sore, utterly exhausted, Anders could have left serious discussion for later, after a few hours sleep and sobering up a bit, but a question weighed on him.

“Are you afraid that this… this wanting will be dangerous to you?” Anders asked. “To what you are. You told me that demons are spirits perverted by their desires.”

Justice looked down at his hand where it lay on Anders’ stomach, not speaking until Anders put his hand over Justice’s.

“Yes,” he admitted at last. “I am afraid.”

Anders cringed inwardly. “I’m sorry.”

“You humans,” Justice said, his voice faint with fatigue, slurred with sex and drink. “You forget. We forget. The Maker gave you a gift. Demons try to steal it. Spirits try not to envy. And I…” He rolled onto his side to press a kiss to Anders’ forehead. “I am here. For good or ill. Be human for me, Anders, and I will be a spirit rather than a demon for you.”

• • •

 _Anders reads what I write about Karl. I do not think that it makes him any less sad for his friend’s passing, but he cannot help himself despite that._

 _It is, they say, human nature._

 _I do not know who “they” are, but I am finding my own human nature._

 _How do I dare to say that it is human?_

 _Because it comes with choice._

 _To have so many choices – to be human is to be terribly, frightfully brave. Now I must learn if I am truly brave enough to try to be even a little human._


	13. Chapter 13

Anders woke with his head on Justice’s belly and the gentle sound of a pre-breakfast, post-alcohol gurgle against his ear. As morning after wakeups went, this was not bad at all. The view wasn’t half-bad either – Justice splayed out on his back, completely naked with blankets tangled at his feet, dark hair fuzzing the skin from his navel down. His skin smelled like sex and it was warm and familiar under Anders’ cheek.

Why couldn’t they just run away from all of this and start a real life somewhere far from all the horror that was Kirkwall?

Justice shifted, bringing his leg up, putting Karl’s thumbprint birthmark into Anders’ line of sight.

That one spot of pigmented skin reminded Anders of all the reasons that they couldn’t just run and let this be someone else’s problem.

He stared at the birthmark until Justice’s hand settled in his hair. “You are awake.”

“No I’m not,” Anders said, trying to hide his gloom. “I’m having a perfect dream about this man who ravishes me all through the day.” He craned his neck up to see Justice’s face and forced a smile. “He looks just like you.”

Justice smoothed hair away from Anders’ face before he propped his pillow to let him look down his body more comfortably. “You are not dreaming, and I am not ravishing you.”

Anders’ neck was getting sore holding it at such an awkward angle. He pressed a kiss to Justice’s stomach before sliding up to nestle against his side, head pillowed on his shoulder. “You could fix that. At least the not ravishing part.”

“We have work to do,” Justice said, but he still pulled Anders into a one-armed embrace and kissed him with a complete disregard for morning breath.

 _Welcome to the world of a living body’s priorities,_ Anders thought, hooking his leg over Justice’s thigh and pressing close.

Justice did not give him time to stay smug, releasing him and sitting up just as Anders was starting to squirm and think that the day was looking up.

“What do you think of Aveline’s idea?” Justice asked while he found his smalls on the floor and pulled them on. Anders was distracted by the swell of his ass when he bent over – there had been one time he had left a perfect imprint of his teeth on Karl’s backside and he was so tempted to do so again with Justice –and was left staring blankly when Justice cast a glance over his shoulder. “Anders?”

“What?”

“Aveline’s idea. Is it viable?”

Shit. The moment’s peace popped like a soap bubble and the world was right back demanding to be acknowledged and dealt with.

Anders sat up and dug his fingers into his scalp, scratching luxuriously while he tried to piece together memories of everything they had discussed the night before.

“Will it change the world?” He moved on from scratching his head to his chest and stomach. His body was pleasantly, perfectly sore. Why couldn’t they talk about more sex instead? “I don’t know. But I think Hawke’s idea has a lot going for it.”

“To get proof and send copies out across Thedas?” Justice asked, retrieving his robe.

Anders stretched out an arm to grab the robe out of Justice’s hands. “Come back to bed and we’ll talk about it here.”

“Anders….”

Anders grinned up at him. He had done this with Karl, too. The thought brought a wash of sorrow – those memories probably always would – but he tried to hold out some hope that he could make some new memories with Justice with less grief to them.

“You can’t get all disapproving on me now.” He tugged at the robe when Justice didn’t release it. “Or you can, but you aren’t as loud when you aren’t in my head. Come back to bed.”

He cut off Justice’s next protest. “Come back to bed and you have my word we’ll talk about Aveline’s idea before we do anything else.”

Justice stared down at him for so long that Anders doubted that he would give in, then he released his robe and slid back into bed, pulling the bunched blankets from the foot of the bed up over them both.

Anders wriggled until they were back in the position they had been in before Justice has foolishly tried to get dressed, with his head on Justice’s shoulder and his hand on his chest.

“Now, the problem I see is how to get truly damning information,” Anders said. He had given his word, and he would keep it now that he had a warm body to lie against again. “Everything’s going to be in the Gallows, and not just in the Gallows where someone like Thrask can get to it, but with the Divine’s special people.”

“Or Ser Alrik,” Justice reminded him. “He is their liaison.”

Anders grunted, “Like Alrik… huh.”

Justice shifted to see Anders’ expression. “You have thought of something?”

He had the start of an idea at least. A crazy idea. An absolutely mad, possibly brilliant idea. “Do you remember that mirror in the Black Emporium?”

“The one that can change your appearance?” Justice asked. “Yes, but how is that relevant?”

“What if we could use Alrik to get the information we need? And discredit him at the same time?” Anders was warming to the idea the more he thought about it. They could hurt the Chantry from both the inside and the outside, and Alrik held a special place of hatred in Anders’ heart for what he had done to Karl.

He sat up before he swung a leg over Justice’s hips to straddle him. He smoothed his fingers down the hair on Justice’s chest and smiled. “Let me tell you what I have in mind, and then we can get back to that dream I was having.”

• • •

Anders sat on a boulder in the smuggling tunnel under the Gallows feeling as though the whole weight of the prison rested on his shoulders – oh, no, wait, that was just the weight of templar plate mail.

“Maker, how do you put up with this stuff,” he grumbled at Thrask. “No wonder most of you are in such bad moods all the time.”

Aveline snorted behind him. “Some of us spend time training our bodies for more than swinging a staff around.”

“And see what it’s done for your mood,” Anders sniped. Habitually he reached up to tighten his ponytail and found only a smoothly bald pate. He dropped his hand with a muttered curse.

Beside him Justice scratched his newly-restored beard while they waited for Carver.

“Gotta say, Blondie, it’s really weird hearing your voice come out of that face.” Varric lounged in a depression in the tunnel wall, almost invisible in the shadows, but Anders could see him buff his fingernails on his duster before he picked under one for a bit of dirt.

Crouched against the opposite wall doodling in a patch of dirt with a fingertip, Hawke grunted in agreement and stood up. “It is, but I have to give Xenon credit, that mirror does amazing work. I can hardly believe he doesn’t charge for it.”

“No weirder than it is having this face,” Anders said, now tugging at Alrik’s long goatee. “Who wears these things? How do you even eat?”

“Just because you never grow anything past stubble doesn’t mean some of us don’t appreciate well-groomed facial hair,” Hawke said, rubbing a hand down his own bearded jaw. “Isn’t that right, Justice? Xenon’s mirror did a good job putting your beard back.”

“It was Karl’s beard,” Justice said with such grim finality that silence fell while everyone considered just what it meant that the soul of Karl Thekla was gone, even if his body still moved and breathed, and what it meant that a spirit of justice occupied the body to see his loss avenged.

The silence drew out until movement farther down the tunnel brought them all to their feet. A helmeted templar hurried into sight and drew up short when he caught sight of swords, staves, and Bianca pointed at him.

The templar snorted and removed his helmet, revealing Carver Hawke. “If you’re all done pointing weapons at me I can tell you that I got the duty switched to take Alrik his meal like Thrask set up. I put the juice you gave me in his ale and he was face down in his potatoes after one swallow. What did you put in that stuff?”

He directed the question at his brother, but Anders answered. “I’ve a friend in Darktown. The things he can do with deep mushrooms are practically murder.”

Carver stared at Anders’ face before he handed over a templar helmet. “This is Alrik’s. What I don’t get is if this is all about what Alrik did to him,” he jabbed a finger toward Justice. “Why make it practically murder? Why just put him to sleep?”

Anders took the helmet and peered inside, grimacing at the sweat-stained padding Alrik used keep to the metal away from his bare head. He thought about how to answer it, glancing over at Justice before he shrugged almost invisibly inside the heavy armor.

“If I killed him or had him murdered, that’s vengeance, not justice.” But Maker, so very tempting. If his outrage contained just a little more rage, he knew he would give in to his need to see Alrik dead. “This way, he isn’t a hero who was murdered by maleficars, he’s a traitor and a failure.”

He settled the helmet on his head and squared his shoulders under the weight of the world. Thrask pulled his own helmet and waited..

Anders’ voice echoed back at him, loud in the confines of the helmet. “You three,” he turned his head to see Hawke, Varric, and Aveline through the slits in the visor. “You’re here to cover our retreat if things blow up. We’ll do our best not to blow anything up, but….”

“But we know how these things go,” Hawke filled in for him. “You didn’t do half bad getting Karl out. We’ll be here to watch your back, but if you get my brother killed—”

Carver grunted in exasperation. “I’m a grown man, big brother. I can take care of myself.”

Aveline cut in as the voice of reason. “Stop bickering and get moving. This will all be ruined if you spend so much time arguing that the real Alrik wakes up.”

Justice started walking up the tunnel. “She’s right. We cannot waste time on argument.”

Hawke subsided, Carver pulled on his helmet, and the two groups parted ways – Hawke, Aveline, and Varric waiting in the tunnel. Anders, Justice, Carver, and Thrask left them for the heart of the Gallows.

• • •

 _Karl Thekla was a mage, but he was also a man. He lived in the Circle from the age of twelve. He enjoyed singing poorly in the bath, often lost his socks, and did not allow himself to believe he loved anyone. He regretted teaching Anders to eschew love, but he believed that it was the wisest choice._

 _When Karl was 19 years old, he fell in love. When he was older, he told himself that it had just been a strong infatuation. He looked back on that time and he rewrote the memories to be nothing but lust, but I can see under the layers of lies he told himself. Karl loved that man. He thought of him often. He composed songs he would only hum to himself in the bath, and he was truly happy until it ended._

 _His lover chose not to be Harrowed. Owain chose Tranquility. Karl and Owain fought over it, but Owain had learned the true nature of the Harrowing and said that he could not go through with it._

 _“I could run from demons my whole life if they let me.” Owain had told Karl on their last night together. “But this is the only kind of running they’ll let me do.” He held Karl for comfort and told him, “I’ll fail the Harrowing and they’ll kill me. At least this way I’ll be alive.”_

 _Karl saw Owain after the rite was performed, and he never again believed that a Tranquil mage was truly a living mage._


End file.
